Generations Read online

  "How is it going?" Seth popped in, not realizing that no amount of authority granted her the privilege to ask this question safely at this time. Both sister Roberta and sister Novis pinned her back with murderous stares and she quickly left the battle field. She had a lot of other things to do anyway.

  "We could try a linear increase in thrust to keep your speed constant," said sister Roberta, unconvinced.

  "We could also try to turn me into a human cannon ball," answered the other sister sarcastically. "Why don't I man the controls and you get thrown around, water can be pretty hard at four hundred miles an hour!"

  "Because you don't know how, dear," answered Roberta, candidly.

  Sister Novis mumbled, irate, and looked at sister deAngelis for support. The latter was staring at the equations, mimicking analysis. Nobody could understand sister Roberta's equations other than the sister herself, and sister deAngelis doubted that even the latter knew what she was doing half the time.

  "I can hear you, you know. You have your bracelet on," Roberta replied patiently.

  "What if we slow me down to 150 mph?" asked sister Novis.

  "Have you ever switched gears from fifth to second?" questioned sister Roberta. Sister Novis had and didn't need additional clarification.

  "Ok, so you're approaching the boundary at approximately 400 mph, the wall effect kicks in and the turbulence should become irrelevant at this point..."

  "What wall effect?" asked sister deAngelis with a blank stare. Sister Roberta was about to start explaining the fundaments of fluid dynamics but she stopped abruptly.

  "From the....oh, dear!" sister Roberta gasped. "It is not a pipe" she said. She looked down, trying to avoid sister Novis's gaze in order not to aggravate her.

  "How is it going?" sister Joseph chimed-in with uncharacteristic cheerfulness.

  "Get out!!" the choir screamed infuriated.

  "So, what's with the pipe?" asked sister Novis, trying very hard not to get mad at the fact that she had run the same flawed simulation for the last seven hours.

  "Of course turbulence matters, there is no solid boundary," sister Roberta faded into a blissful scientific world in her mind, completely oblivious to urgency and practicality.

  "So, do you think you can fix it?" asked sister Novis, hopeful.

  "Fix it? I can make it faster! Why, at the speed we can reach anything would literally take off, I can hardly wait!" she continued but then met sister Novis's stare and remembered the cannon ball comment. "On second thought we'll keep you at 400 mph, that should push you out of the stream."

  "What if I fall in another stream?" asked sister Novis.

  "We're counting on it, it would be very unpleasant if you fell on slow water. Welcome to our new transit system!"

  "Are you sure I can jump safely? I don't think human bodies are designed to take this amount of shear. How do I get out when I reach the destination?"

  "Details, dear! We'll work on that," said sister Roberta absentminded. Her brain was focused on solving the problem and a broad smile lit up her face. Sister Novis lifted her eyes to take a break from all the tension and saw Lily and Jimmy sitting quietly with eyes as large as saucers on the spectrometer table with the old spectrometer bound permanently to it, an endearing reminder of sister Roberta's early innovations.

  "Just pray," sister Novis reassured herself. "Everything is going to be alright."

  "I can still hear you, you know," sister Roberta added.

  "Can I ask how it is going now?" Seth chimed in.

  "No!", the choir replied.

  ***

  The suns were really bright that morning, the light filtered through the glass enclosure and sparkled on the beveled edges diffracting into rainbows. The sisters were gathered in the central space, wrapping up morning meditations.

  It was a habit they had taken on recently. Since they all spent some time in prayer in the morning they decided to do it together and use the time after service to catch up and coordinate their schedule. Work had become so automated that all of their time was divided between mindful introspection, teaching and research, so a morning get together didn't feel like an imposition at all, they all looked forward to this opportunity to socialize.

  They had just concluded the blessings and were getting ready to leave when the serenity of the glass hall was broken by a terrible racket. It sounded like a herd of cats ran through the pantry and disturbed every pot and pan on the shelves.

  "What on...", Seth said. "Sarah, where are your pupils?" she asked.

  "They are not supposed to be here yet, the class is not in two hours," the latter said, confused.

  Sister Joseph emerged from the kitchen all flustered, huffing and puffing like a locomotive with a stock pot in one hand and a giant ladle in the other.

  "Here comes the cauldron," Sarah thought and was immediately interrupted by dirty looks from both Seth and a fuming Joseph.

  "Whatever are you doing, sister?" Seth asked, too befuddled to be angry.

  "Who left the pots in front of the refrigerator?" the latter roared, accompanied by the clatter of the last dropping lids. They were metallic and reverberant and made screeching noises as they reached the stainless steel countertops. Sister Abigail, who was on kitchen duty, mumbled something unintelligible under her breath and she threw a pan back on the stove. A hiss was followed by a thin wisp of steam which was followed by another unintelligible mumble.

  Sister Roberta's heart sank. She had been running an empirical test to double check her fluid dynamics simulations and didn't put the pots back on the rack because she was planning to continue the experiment after matins. She didn't think there would be anyone in the kitchen, it was so early after all...

  "There is ALWAYS someone in the kitchen, do you think breakfast cooks itself?" sister Abigail retorted. The admonition didn't have the expected result since it suggested to sister Roberta something new to try; her mind went off on a tangent and started designing an automated chef.

  Seth got up, followed by the curious group, to attend to the commotion just as the children started arriving for class. On the large induction stove in the middle of the kitchen a large pot of oatmeal was simmering, giving off a little burnt smell.

  "Great! She burned it again!" sister Novis thought.

  "We'll wait until it is your turn for kitchen duty, then," sister Abigail replied, offended.

  All around the kitchen, strewn in complete disarray over the shelves, the floors and the table tops lay frying pans, cooking utensils and storage containers whose partly spilled contents mingled on the counters. Sister Abigail was dusted from head to toe in vanilla sugar and cinnamon and looked like an enormous pastry treat.

  "Breakfast is ready," she said, scooping heaping ladles of the runny glop into delicate bowls covered in fine tracery.

  The aroma of fresh baked bread steamed out of the oven and sister Novis breathed a sigh of relief that there was at least something edible on the menu that morning. Sister Abigail did her best to remove the flour, couscous, nutmeg, tossed sugar, olive oil, cocoa and honey from the table surface so they could lay down their bowls.

  "So, can I ask how it is going now?" Seth asked sister Roberta. The sister shuffled uncomfortably in the chair.

  "There is the little issue of randomness," she coughed, slightly embarrassed. "If only I could figure out what makes those currents form it would be really useful. Otherwise we only got a solution to move fast across the water with no control over the destination at all."

  "What's your theory?" Seth asked.

  "Water temperature is an obvious factor but it's a merging of conditions that makes the shifts happen: depth, density, differences in water chemistry, tide. I spent the last two weeks looking at live satellite broadcasts and can't figure out repeating patterns. So far we can somewhat explain the phenomenon, but not replicate it," the sister continued.

  "What were you doing with the pots?" Seth asked.

  "Making life miserable for the rest of us!" sister Joseph
snarled, still annoyed.

  "I was trying to figure out how the viscosity changes with speed and temperature. It is a shear-thinning fluid, the faster it gets the faster it gets," sister Roberta said to a mystified audience who felt it had been punished enough with the runny glop that stuck to the pot to have to listen to the reasons behind the unfortunate kitchen occurrence.

  "What is a shear-thinning fluid?" Sarah asked.

  "This is," said sister Roberta, picking up a bottle of honey and squeezing it at her.

  "Seriously, sometimes, sister!" Sarah protested, "use your words!"

  "It gets more fluid when you shake it," obliged sister Roberta.

  "Well, keep working on it, something will come up" said Seth, and she continued eating her oatmeal without joy or displeasure.

  ***

  Despite sister Roberta's heroic efforts to figure out what laws of physics were generating the strange fluid dynamics phenomenon it was Louise, one of the children, who discovered by chance what made the water move. The kids were playing at the edge of the ocean dropping watercolor in it to watch the fascinating patterns that the paint created as it dispersed slowly in the silky waves. Louise bent down and stretched her hand to reach the ephemeral arabesques and her magnetic bangle fell into the water.

  A magic thing happened: the random arabesques aligned themselves into long linear strands inside the circle of the bracelet, redirecting the flow.

  "Goodness me, I think the magnetic field of the planet is creating the patterns, this water must be saturated with ions", gasped sister Roberta. "That's why the currents are so unpredictable, these suns are crazy, we couldn't figure out their paths either."

  She went back to the lab in a hurry to study the implications of the findings while the children spent the rest of the afternoon painting the ocean with magnets and gouaches.

  ***

  Sarah sat at one end of the long kitchen table watching chamomile steep slowly in hot water. The afternoon was mellow, one of those slow times that comfort the soul like a plush blanket. One could hear the peaceful sounds of the birds and little animals through the open door and the scent of kitchen herbs saturated the air. She poured the tea in a colorful cup that the children had glazed for her, featuring poppies, delphiniums and lily-of-the-valley, dragged the large bowl of potatoes closer and started peeling. Sister Roberta entered the kitchen with a preoccupied look on her face, holding a long and narrow glass container.

  "What's that?" Sarah asked, more out of habit than curiosity because sister Roberta had been so fully immersed in the water propulsion project lately that whatever she was carrying couldn't possibly be related to anything else.

  "I'm going to need a little space, I hope I'm not in the way," she started, and continued with her experiment without waiting for the answer. Sarah just nodded, didn't answer, and reached for another potato.

  "Give me one of those, if you don't mind. Actually, can you peel a couple more and pass them over here?" she asked. The redhead didn't question the request, she just peeled two more potatoes and gave them to the sister who was too immersed in her work to explain the details. Sarah kept peeling.

  "What's for dinner?" sister Roberta asked, moving around the table pushing levers, adjusting settings and inputting revisions into the gizmo.

  "Latkes," Sarah answered simply.

  "Can I have another potato?" sister Roberta asked, reaching her left arm to get it. Sarah grabbed a peeled potato and gave it to her, then got up and went to the pantry to refill the bowl.

  "Are you trying to increase the positive charge?" Sarah asked, unsurprised.

  "And the thickness of the fluid," said sister Roberta. "How much magnesium in a potato?"

  "For that size, about 80 mg," answered Sarah. "And 1500 mg of potassium."

  "You can have these back, then," she returned the last two potatoes and drizzled some cranberry juice in the water.

  Sarah grated the last two tubers into the mix and started forming patties. Out of the corner of her eye she could see sister Roberta adjust the magnets to create linear grids, helical swirls, sinusoidal waves, circular whirls and angular direction changes. Sarah kept forming the patties and setting them down in layers on a large plate while her attention was completely absorbed by the unbelievable water puzzle that sister Roberta was so expertly playing with, painting patterns, changing velocities, blending different color streams into bright pastels.

  "The oil is hot," sister Roberta advised, turning a dial to bend the linear patterns. Sarah jumped and quickly placed a few patties in the frying pan. The cool potatoes stirred the oil to a rolling boil and then slowed it down to a steady simmer.

  "Is that the steering system?" Sarah laughed. Sister Roberta looked back bothered by the lack of seriousness.

  "You know, for all the times you people laughed at me and were wrong I should really not explain any of this," she said. She frowned at Sarah to express her displeasure. The latter presented an appropriately reserved and respectful countenance but a impish glimmer sparkled in her eyes. The question still lingered, unanswered.

  "Yes, it is!" sister Roberta finally responded. "The latkes need more salt," she said, irked, then grabbed a couple more for the road, picked up the container and left.

  ***

  "Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. Ready or not, here I come!" Jenna said, turning around on her feet and looking for the rest of the children. Jimmy was still running about fifty or sixty feet away, trying to find a good hiding place.

  "Easy pickings," Jenna thought, and started towards him stirring the warm brick colored silt of the beach under her bare feet. Jimmy assessed the situation and didn't want to waste energy running away since his friend was almost next to him. He turned around to face her and vanished slowly into thin air like a marshmallow Cheshire cat.

  The surprise befuddled the little girl. "Where did he go?" she wondered.

  "Jimmy?" she asked softly through the neural interlink.

  "Yes," a little voice whispered, even more confused than hers. Jenna shook her blond tresses and pushed a stubborn strand of hair out of her eyes. She looked around and saw nothing but palm trees, silty beach and peaceful waves.

  "Where are you?" she asked, worried.

  ***

  "StreamPath simulation, take 452 in 3, 2, 1," sister Roberta yawned while she recorded the new test into her work journal. She was bored silly with the never ending fine tuning of the device. To her credit the prototype was progressing splendidly but the adjustments were incredibly fine, in a nanometer range that even her custom made sophisticated equipment had trouble modulating. She turned around and took another sip of coffee while chatting through the interlink with sister Novis and in the process turned a small dial all the way up without noticing. Nothing happened at first, so she continued her conversation with the insistent sister who wanted to know the latest details of her future test track.

  "It is exactly how we ran it yesterday, only smoother," sister Roberta continued to reassure the inquisitive Novis, "We are getting into the .23nm range, it gets really difficult to calibrate the instruments," she continued and as she turned around she found herself face to face with Jimmy who was perched like a little bird on top of the equalizer with his hair in disarray and a perplexed look in his eyes.

  Sister Roberta didn't react, used as she was to the children sticking their little noses into everything from uncomfortably close proximity, but was really annoyed at the possibility of having to rework the experiment so she picked up little Jimmy, ready to give him a piece of her mind.

  "You are in real trouble now, mister, I already told you if I find you in here again I'll..." she didn't get a chance to continue, because little Jimmy started sniffling with an aggrieved look on his face.

  "I didn't do anything, sister, really I didn't, I was outside playing with Jenna and she was about to catch me and..."

  "What is going on?" Seth and Sarah interjected through the neural interlink almost simultaneously, but from different pers
pectives: Seth because she wanted to ensure the never ending testing of the prototype finally yielded something usable and Sarah because she had heard Jenna call for Jimmy and was relieved to have found him.

  "Calm down and start from the beginning," sister Roberta restarted the conversation on a kinder gentler note. "What happened?"

  "I was on the beach playing hide and go seek with Jenna, Lucy, Gabe, Mike,..."

  "Go on," sister Roberta interrupted the listing of all of Jimmy's friends to get to the action.

  "And she finished counting and she was running and I was going to start running away," Jimmy continued, still sniffling but otherwise unperturbed.

  "And?" sister Roberta pressed, anxiously.

  "And then I was here, and I really don't know how I got here and I really didn't do anything why doesn't anybody believe me," little Jimmy continued to argue his defense, since he already had a standing time-out for the remainder of the week and didn't want to extend the penalty.