Kings (and Queens) of Speed
by Roderick Gladwish

A guitar riff into the future PhD student Tim O’Shenko slipped out of the Portsmouth Guildhall for a smoke. In Britain the anti-smoking legislation had become severe. If caught lighting up in public Tim would be forced to smoke an extra two packets as punishment.

Within the civic centre, Rin Tizzy Too, a Thin Lizzy tribute act, were giving their all. Unrestrained by convention, Thin Lizzy’s music barely appeared in their repertoire. Standards from TRex to Van Halen were straining the amplifiers. What the musicians lacked in talent, musicality or shame was compensated for in raw sound energy. A fan of retro-rock, Tim made his jailbreak when he could no longer bear the murder of classic anthems.

Leaning against a tree near a poorly lit war memorial and drawing on his cigarette Tim wondered if his eyeballs were suffering from the concussive waves escaping the building because there was a haze around people queuing to get in. It was a surprise that people still wanted in when everyone in the city could hear the quality of the performance. Stunned pigeons lying around the guildhall square legs twitching to the beat should have been ample warning.

It was then Tim spotted himself handing over his ticket to enter the building.

Space-time was being warped by Rock!

* * *

The next morning Tim’s thoughts galloped like crazy horses as he walked through basement levels of the Physics Faculty at the University of Portsmouth. Here were the laboratories above which was Tim’s little office. A theory solidified as he sat down in front of his computer.

Tim wrote his extraordinary paper in a day. Equations, squiggly diagrams and the word ‘quantum’ flowed from his fingers and into the computer. The universe was vibrations of the quantum foam. Sound was vibrations and the vibrations of the quantum foam. If a sound was shaped so were the quantum vibrations. If you had an amplifier of suitable power then the universe could be changed with the right tune. Macro and quantum universes weren’t supposed to interact directly, but he and two dozen traumatised birds had seen it.

Tim didn’t take the concept too far because this was radical thinking and could lose him his research grant. Instead he framed it as a proposal that sound could cross a vacuum by measuring the changes on a quantum level. There was Heisenberg to deal with, but Tim prided himself on being able to win research grants (his lifestyle depended on it) and thus Heisenberg would become the key to asking for more beer money.

Tim never thought that his progress was being monitored. A virus so sinister that it made computers run faster and with less crashes had infected every machine on the planet. It watched for keywords. Tim won the prize for most used keywords that decade; he would have to be dealt with.

Confidently emailing his great work to his professor Tim decided now was a good time for a beer. The email was intercepted and rerouted as he shut the door to his office. The contents of his computer were wiped as he walked through the subterranean halls. His paper notes would vanish with a cleaner who only did one night’s work.

* * *

Wisely the city planners had placed a row of pubs directly outside the university’s main buildings.

For lunch Tim had three pints and, to make sure he wasn’t drinking on an empty stomach, a bag of peanuts. It was nearly 3pm when he decided he should return to work. With a mellow feeling of a man who knows he’s very clever Tim ambled down the steps of the hostelry.

A stretched limonene with blacked out windows aligned itself with its target.

Tim ambled across the narrow road.

The vehicle accelerated.

Tim crossed safely then heard the car draw up behind him.

“Excuse me,” said a husky-voiced female.

A woman leaned out of the back window. He was aware of a national cleavage shortage and could see why. This girl was using up half the country’s supply. He didn’t register her face because of the barely constrained orbs threatening to escape her skin-tight black leather minidress.

“Er...yes?”

“I am looking for the Physics Building,” she whispered provocatively forcing Tim to lean closer, which he didn’t mind at all.

“It’s up those steps on the corner.”

“Oh good, physics turns me on. Are you a physicist?”

Tim’s throat had gone dry.

“Yes,” he squeaked.

“Oh good.”

“Oh good,” he repeated. Physics groupies were a particular unfulfilled hope for Tim. If she were slightly drunk she’d be perfect.

“I need a place to park this car, would you help me?”

The door popped open and the girl uncurled her long legs sheathed in fishnet stockings ending in high stilettos.

“Oh good...er, I mean oh yes. These a par cack, I mean, car park. There’s a car park. Oh yes, I can help.”

Tim climbed in with the girl who managed to run those beautiful legs against his.

Thoughts one hundred percent carnal were interrupted when she stunned him with a Taser.

* * *

Water splashed over Tim’s face. He awoke on a gilded nineteenth century chaise lounge. Towering over him was the girl dressed as before hence it took a long time for him to spot the Taser in the opposite hand to the glass of water.

“He’s up,” she stated then poured the rest of liquid on his face.

“Cool,” coo-ed a man.

Tim had moments to take in a room big enough to house aircraft, full of antiques of random taste and style. They had been arranged in the same way a toddler arranges its playthings. The man approached offering his hand. Expecting violence Tim recoiled then had a good look at the man and recoiled in fashion shock. Physicists are usually immune to this since most stick to the rule: thin for hot weather, thick for cold and leave tailoring details to others.

A wiry man nearing fifty he wore a T-shirt and shrink-tight jeans. His face was lined through years of excess that Tim would never be able to match even in his physics groupie fantasies. His hair was like an electrocuted poodle. Ringlets of defunct dog hung loosely dancing about as he moved.

“I know you,” Tim said cautiously shaking the man’s firm hand.

“Sure you do, but call me Fahrenheit, or Mr F for short. You are clever Tim O’Shenko. You worked it all out didn’t you? Spotted our clues: the spaceships on the album covers and videos. Why someone with a PhD in astrophysics gave up the pleasures of hard science be the lead guitarist in a rock band. The Einstein/Stones tongue clue. Not that Mick understands what’s going on, but he’s always game.”

“Yes...er, yes,” Tim stuttered without any clear idea of what was going on.

“I don’t think he gets it,” Ms Taser said.

“Katie, he can’t get it until we show him. Can yer man?”

“No, best to show me.” Tim agreed hoping to reduce the likelihood of future electric shocks.

“You’re not the first to discover the link between music and space-time,” Mr F began. “After that mistake with the atom bomb, the scientists who discovered it couldn’t dare share this secret with politicians. That was where rock met science!” Mr F ended like Tim would understand.

“Yes indeed,” Tim said after realising there was a pause for him to speak.

“He doesn’t get it,” Katie said.

“Over thirty years ago it was discovered that if you pick the right rock track, amplify it then focus in the right direction whoooooosh!”

“Whoosh,” Tim agreed, then pointing at Katie, “Don’t say it. I think I’ve got it.”

Pause.

“Nope, you’ll have to tell me.”

“Faster than light drive.”

There was a longer pause as Tim didn’t know whether to laugh (and get stunned again) or continue pausing (and delay being stunned).

“Yeah man, my musical brothers and I supply the rock, Katie and her egghead dudes do the science and whoooooosh!”

“Stadium rock works best,” Katie stated with a sour expression. “Rock stars earn lots of money which helps. Half the tech here was built under guise of rich men’s whims or set designs. Say you try to buy heavy water in bulk. Every intelligence agency in the world will be going through your trash.”

“Hey, I just said I wanted the most expensive water in the world for my pool and they said how much do you want. Cool huh? Champagne fountain, heavy water pool, no one cares. Then of course my buddy wants to out do me and orders the same; then my other buddy does the same. No one cares.”

“We make our own now on a Caribbean island owned by —”

“By?”

“Need to know,” Katie said, “Exclusive recording studio.”

“With the biggest damn power station you ever saw!” added Mr F. “Shall we give him the tour?”

“Kinda pointless bringing him here if we don’t,” she replied.

“Cool, I love showing off.”

Tim thought the same could be said of Katie in her revealing attire.

“Follow me Tim. This is the European base of operations, rock and science united in making a better world.” Mr F explained leading them to double doors inlaid with silver. “Got everything here indoor Olympic pool, gym, beach volleyball.” Beyond was an elevated walkway either side were huge rooms. There were men and women in each enjoying the luxury. “It’s important to stay chilled. Get fit in mind and body and party!”

Tim stopped to look down on the beach volleyball court where four bikini clad women were raking the sand at the end of a game.

“I thought you’d be more interested in the library,” Katie thumbed on the opposite side of the walkway.

Reluctantly Tim switched sides. Sweeping away were four storeys of book shelves.

“We get every learned journal and have on-tap any research material you might want.”

“Hmmm,” he said noncommittally.

“The off-duty librarians were playing volleyball.”

“And do you play volleyball?”

* * *

Tim recovered more quickly from being Taser-ed the second time.

Mr F was slapping his face.

“Katie doesn’t like dumb-ass remarks about how she looks,” Mr F warned too late. “She used be forty pounds heavier and got a lot of comments, now she’s fit she still gets comments.”

“Fit’s the word I’d use,” said Tim after checking Katie was no where in sight.

“No one asks Katheryne about the dozen papers in Nature she’s written on quantum cosmology and superconductors, just her body. It’s the downside of being a dancer.”

“Dancer? Katie...Katheryne...” Tim clambered up.

“Yeah, she’s one of my dancers when the band tours. Great way to visit our friends without being of any interest to anyone, drop out child prodigies are two a penny.”

“Katheryne...cosmology and superconductors. Featherstone! That’s K K Featherstone! Good God!” Tim looked at Mr F. “I thought she’d vanished into some University. She’s got to be thirty-four, thirty-five.” Ancient to the twenty-seven year old Tim.

“Thirty-eight.”

“She is fit.”

“Word to the wise, if you don’t want a fat lip don’t talk about her body.”

Mr F pushed open matching double doors at the end of the walk way and into a grand dinning room. This was Renaissance decadence with a twenty-first century twist. It was gold, gaudy and garish to the point of criminality. Tim stopped to stare whilst Mr F continued down the length of a table large enough to play hockey on.

“We kept this and the bedrooms for show, but scooped out the rest of the chateau. We got four sound stages, dance studio, forty-babe hot tub, roadies, electricians, pyrotechnicians, set builders, geeks of every shade. All you need to keep a world-shaking rock band on the road or a science network under wraps.”

Upon reaching the other end of the table Mr F discovered he was alone.

“Tim, keep up or you’ll miss your flight.”

“This is either real or the greatest wind up in history,” Tim said.

“Hey, Tim, you’re a nobody. You ain’t worth my time for some kind of gag.”

“How do I know you don’t get off on suckering nobodies?”

“I get off on sleeping with as many women as I can and the adulation of fifty thousand screaming fans who want to be me! Occasionally smoking a spliv staring into Jupiter’s great red spot at point blank range does it for me too. C’mon man I didn’t bring you to France for this.”

Tim hurried along the table with two time zones.

“I can’t be in France, I wasn’t out that long.”

“Depends on how fast you can go and I am fast!”

Mr F took Tim around the chateau explaining how they were channelling their discoveries to help mankind, whilst anything with weapon potential was strictly kept for them.

The tour ended in a leather-lined room in the centre of the building, cameras and screens were inset into the tanned cow walls.

“We do TV interviews and satellite link-ups here,” Mr F said.

Gesturing with a finger Mr F called Tim over, who was gaping at very familiar furnishings.

“Didn’t you do that notorious MTV awards link in here? You were all doped to the eyeballs.”

“Man, we were sober as judges except...except we’d just come back from saving Delhi from being totalled by a meteor. Trust me; you can’t get a high like that with drugs.”

Mr F pressed a stud in the leather and a stainless steel pole rose up from the floor. Hidden coloured lights began playing their beams over it and the floor around.

“Don’t tell me Katie does that kind of dancing.”

“Maybe on her days off,” Mr F said pressing a second stud that caused the floor beneath the pole open. He slid, via the pole, out of sight.

Tim followed and nearly broke his ankles crashing into the floor.

“Always wanted to be a fireman – not!” Mr F explained pulling Tim upright.

They were in a mechanic’s workshop if mechanics created exotic abstract sculptures out of gold and silver. Around the walls were benches with hundreds of drawers above and below. Amongst the strange items were more familiar ones; such as: soldering irons, sheaths of paper, mugs of coffee, paper aeroplanes, a handful of butchered Fender Stratocasters and a Moog that had been forced to mate with an amplifier. Paper notes were stapled to the walls. Computers with huge screens were showing graphs morphing into mathematical landscapes as iterations evolved. Tim could smell ionising air. There was the hum of high voltage. A tingling sensation warned him of the same. Also there was a rising excitement. This was a physics lab. Here were the equations that he had solved last night made real. Rock chicks in fishnet stockings might punch his biological buttons, but the biggest hits he got were when the weirdness of physics exploded into the madness of reality.

“She solved the vacuum energy problem.”

“Katie and others; apparently you gotta realise there isn’t a vacuum and zero is zero, but not nothing or something like that, but hey that’s not for me to fret about.”

Mr F had to take Tim by the shoulders to pull him away from the hypnotic power of complex mathematics.

They stood in a hanger and in front of the most amazing object Tim had ever seen. Seeing it confirmed everything, apart from what Katie did on her days off, was Gospel truth.

“It’s based on a Lamborghini Diablo,” Mr F said ushering Tim toward it.

“Nah, actually the Diablo is based on it.”

Mr F continued talking yet Tim couldn’t hear him. His eyes studied every line of the extraordinary vehicle.

It was a big faceted wedge angled like a sprinter straining on starting blocks. Sharp edged panels blended into a central transparent sphere that was obscured by ribs running bow to stern flowing around the shapes and looking like cooling fins which they couldn’t be. The rear became black blocks two stories high. Crazy Little Thing was written in gold letters riveted onto the flanks of the blocks.

“No heat shielding or scorching,” Tim mumbled. It was impressive he retained enough self-control not to dribble.

“It’s sheathed in a nickel super alloy for safety, but Mercury class ships have enough spare power to slow themselves down before hitting the atmosphere so no significant frictional heating.” Katie had returned.

She was the only sight that could break the siren hold of the Crazy Little Thing because it looked like she’d been dipped in white chocolate with tubes and wires set into the coating in all the places that Tim would have chosen to make a great body achieve perfection. He was drooling now.

Katie threw a large white blob that hit him full in the face.

Pulling it away as it threatened to suffocate him, Tim discovered it was an identical costume to Katie’s. It flowed in his grip.

“Put it on,” Katie commanded.

“What this?”

Rolling her eyes heavenward, she said, “You did write that paper didn’t you? You’re not some clerical error?”

“I did; I’m suffering from information overload.”

“It’s your spacesuit. It’s elasticated so it doesn’t have to be pressurised also it exercises your muscles so they don’t atrophy as fast.”

“It feels thick,” Tim said realising it was the reason the woman’s curves were curvier than before.

“Two layers sandwich microscopic piezoelectric crystals, it behaves like a non-Newtonian fluid so it goes hard if impacted, protects from micro-meteors. It’s an insulator too so you won’t cook or freeze.”

“I know what a non-Newtonian fluid is. It’s why you can walk on custard.”

“We’ve all walked on custard,” Mr F stated and both scientists looked at him.

“I don’t need a spacesuit,” Tim said.

“Yes you do, now take all your clothes off and put it on. Use the changing room over there.”

“Right, right,” Tim said. Her second skin gave no place for her to hide a Taser; he decided not to be proven wrong and headed for the changing room. “Have I got to take everything off?”

“The suit reacts in antiphase to the acoustic pressure the engines flood the cabin with. Electrical charges pulse through the suit to affect the crystals to prevent you being pulverised by the sound waves. It works like those sound neutralising headphones you can buy. Wear something underneath and you’ll get bruised at best, broken at worst.”

Doubtful but obedient Tim entered the changing room.

He undressed then picked up the white costume that oozed between his fingers.

Having never worn a cat suit before, Tim faced the challenge uncertainly, giving the stretchy material a tug or two finding pulling it quickly it became stiff whilst a slow pull made it yield easily. Unlike the lithe woman with a dancer’s suppleness, the only dexterous feat Tim had could claim was drinking a pint of beer through his nose. The neck hole was the single entrance; it stretched against his effort to snap snugly around his neck when released. Unfortunately his head was in the outfit and his naked body outside. Greater effort was required to extricate his head before he suffocated as panic lead to hard yanking which caused the suit to put up maximum resistance. Tim fought like a streaker attacked by an epileptic albino squid until the suit eased off his head with a pop.

After that with much wriggling and swearing, Tim finally wore his new attire.

Tim did look coated in white chocolate except it had melted gathering in creases and bulges around his gut.

Returning to the Crazy Little Thing, the more pleasant vision in white had donned a large helmet and handed him one.

The headgear clamped on his neck and the padding inside began expanding sealing the neck joint.

A high fidelity voice reached his ears.

“Can you hear me?” It was Katie.

“Yes,” Tim said.

“Good, follow me.”

The Crazy Little Thing was lined in the same yielding material as the suit. Tim didn’t manage to have much of a look around as he was led up to the cockpit. He realised most of the volume of the craft was engines and power generation.

Katie pushed him into one of a pair of Recaro seats with five-point racing harnesses.

He tried to act like a scientist as she fastened him in.

“You’ve said the engines are based on amplifiers but what is supplying the energy, it must take one hell of a lot.”

Katie slipped into the pilot’s seat and hit a button.

The craft lurched into the vertical as the ceiling slowly slid out of the way. Briefly water poured from the growing view of the sky.

“The main complex is under the house, but the hangar doors are under the pool. Water is a great radar absorber. Mind you it’s also lined with anechoic materials.”

“I asked about the power.”

“Fusion.”

“Cold or Hot?”

“Jazz.”

The ship’s controls were pedals for speeding up and slowing down and a wheel for turning. Katie shifted in to D and floored it.

* * *

Tim awoke to a bright slivery glow.

“You’re going to have to get fit if you want to do this regularly.”

“I wasn’t ready, I pulled must have been nine or ten g’s.”

“Four. It’s about then inertia is cancelled out.”

Out of the window was the Moon or rather five hundred meters away a bright wall of craters and softly sloping terrain.

“Stone me,” Tim observed

The landscape continued to grow.

“Aren’t we getting a little close?”

Katie ignored him.

Crazy Little Thing swooped in.

The peanuts he’d eaten earlier wanted to leave, his stomach wanted to follow. He could feel his lack of weight: this was real. He wanted to follow his stomach.

The craft descended onto the surface. Outside was the base of a lunar lander sitting in the centre of a blast pattern. Less than five meters away from Crazy Little Thing’s bow stood an American flag.

“This can’t be real,” Tim said out loud to convince his digestive system; otherwise the inside of the suit wouldn’t stay white. “You’ve got me in a simulator. This is a wind up. No radiation. I’m getting no flashes where cosmic rays fly through my eyeballs.”

“We’re shielded. Mercuries are good up to a coronal mass ejection outside the orbit of Venus.”

“That flag, it was blown over when Apollo Eleven returned to the command module.”

“It has fallen down three times in the last fifty years. Some of our American members tend to it. Twice we’ve had to get it back when others put up the Confederate flag instead. Let me show you something.”

Shifting into R Crazy Little Thing backed away from the historic site. It spun on its vertical axis (by pulling the spin-in-vertical-axis lever) then headed for a nearby hillock. Skimming over sterile regolith the ship followed the curve of the land to dip into a shallow valley and then up to a taller peak.

Tim’s knuckles were white inside their white cushioned gloves.

In a power slide Katie brought the Crazy Little Thing to a stop on the summit.

In front of Tim was a field of flags. Almost every nation was represented.

“Now’s the moment of decision,” Katie said. “You have to decide whether you’re with us or not.”

“What happens if I’m not?”

“You’ll never go into space again.”

“Oh God, you’re going to kill me. This is all to lure me away so my body will never be found.”

Katie’s groan was thunderous.

“We’re not that kind of secret organisation; that’s so clichéd. Haven’t you got any imagination?”

“I have a great imagination, but I know all your secrets —”

Katie stifled a laugh.

“You’ll have to keep me silent from telling the world.”

“What? That spacecraft propelled by Rock are controlled by a conclave of scientists and musicians?”

“Er...yes, but you’re K K Featherstone. You’ve got science cred.”

“Look up my history sometime. I am a burnt out wunderkind. I haven’t written a paper for twenty years.”

“Ah, but my work—”

“Will be discredited,” Katie said. “You can join us and help slowly bring incredible technology to the world without being used for war or, if you don’t want to, we’ll set up in one our research companies with a salary so big you’ll forget about telling the world anything. Choosing option two means you never see the inside of a spacecraft again.”

Tim looked at Katie’s helmet and wondered what her face looked like.

“I need a smoke.”

“There are some cigars in a humidor in the chill out room. Look for the drinks cabinet.”

“This ship has a drinks cabinet?”

“It’s for Rock Gods; the cabins have mirrored ceilings too.”

“I’m in.”

 

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