The Origin of F.O.R.C.E.

Heinbaum’s laboratory was a 3,000 square foot underground space located adjacent to the warehouse at the Nevada facility where the Chrysallaman saucer was hidden. Per his specifications, the lab was filled with various kinds and sizes of work tables and specialized equipment. Cases filled with scientific apparatus were everywhere. Each piece of equipment was of the most modern design. Any Harvard or MIT professor would have gazed in dumbfounded admiration at the variety and quality of laboratory equipment if they had been permitted inside the building. However, top secret military installations buried in the Nevada desert over 120 miles from Las Vegas don’t allow third party inspections.

Heinbaum sat on a stool. He looked like a deranged, eccentric scientist hunched over a complicated looking electron microscope. Moving his head away from the scope’s eyepieces, he massaged his eyes to soothe away the strain. The habit of not blinking for long periods of time while closely studying the molecular structure of exotic materials made his eyes dry and strained.

Taking a short break, he got off the stool and looked around the big room. His engineering assistant and machinist, Walter Cunningham, was at his workbench across the room, preparing the modules necessary for testing the projection of the alien heat ray. Lieutenant Jerome McPherson was being his normal aggravating self either cleaning one of his firearms or racking the slide of a 45 caliber pistol.

The smell of gun oil was driving Heinbaum crazy. Despite McPherson’s shortcomings, the slick-haired scientist had to admit the flame-haired Scot was not such an oaf as he pretended to be. McPherson had demonstrated a few days ago he was absolutely cunning in his ability to weaponize the hardware of the Chrysallamans.

The operating principles behind the Chrysallaman heat ray had been the first technology Heinbaum had tried to reverse engineer. The autopsy of the dead Navajo at the crash site had revealed his death had occurred as the result of his brain cooking. The horse he was riding had suffered a similar fate. The medical examiner’s report stated the brain appeared to have been cooked in an oven at 390 degrees F. for 20 minutes. Eyewitnesses to the attack indicated the Indian and his horse had died in less than one minute. Heinbaum had surmised a focused beam of energy directed towards the horseman would accelerate the vibration of molecules inside a space enclosed by bone. With no ready opening to let the heat escape, the brain cooked. To confirm his theory, Heinbaum had the medical examiner run an analysis of the bone marrow in the femur of both the Indian and the horse. Results showed the marrow in both instances had been heated in the same way as the brains.

A close inspection of the alien saucer revealed a series of black glass emitters along its outer edge. Black, glass-like filaments coated with a silver paint ran from the apertures to a central box structure near the top of the main power source. Opening the box revealed what looked like a light bulb similar to the standard 100-watt bulb found in American homes. The logical deduction was the source of the heat ray was the bulb.

Nestled inside the box, the bulb was surrounded by shutter mechanisms. The shutters allowed selective control of light from the bulb to enter the glassine filaments. Controlling the shutters enabled the heat ray to be fired either from one emitter, a selected series of emitters or all of the emitters. Equipped with these omni-directional heat rays, a saucer was a formidable weapon capable of killing in a 360-degree circle.

There was an added bonus they discovered during the inventory of spare equipment stored aboard the alien craft. Two extra heat ray bulbs matching the one installed in the emitter box had been found along with 8 power modules for the ray pistol. Cunningham, under the strict supervision of Heinbaum, had drilled into the mechanism of one of the spare bulbs and successfully duplicated its Molybdenum/Magnesium/Mercury alloy coil configuration. Heinbaum theorized the Magnesium atoms in the coil alloy produced the high heat output, but he was amazed the highly volatile metal didn’t flash disintegrate when powered.

After using a mass spectrometer to analyze the trace gases filling the bulb, he learned the bulb was sealed to a complete vacuum with just a trace of the rare gases, Krypton and Xenon. He theorized the rare gas combination allowed the magnesium in the alloy to release its atoms without disintegration. After shielding the copy bulb within a 4 inch thick lead box, trial and error experimentation found 600 volts of direct current activated the bulb coil. Using 4 inch lead shielding as a standard, Cunningham built a specialized emitter box around the bulb to test its heating effectiveness on various materials.

Thinking back to the day he demonstrated his mock-up of the heat ray, Heinbaum’s eyes narrowed with a mixture of anger and frustration. General Matt Collier, Lieutenant Mike Jenson and McPherson had been present along with Cunningham.

“Gentlemen,” Heinbaum had begun graciously. “Please direct your attention to the apparatus on the workbench.”

On the glistening tabletop sat a silver box 3 feet wide, 1.5 feet high and 1.5 feet deep. A heavy, hinged lid gave entry to a 1 foot square area in the middle of the box.

“After careful examination of the Chrysallaman heat ray emitter, I have managed to duplicate its function,” Heinbaum continued.

Adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses, Heinbaum gestured towards Walter Cunningham with a magnanimous wave of his arm and ordered, “Mr. Cunningham, let our guests inspect the test material and then place it into the receiver.”

Cunningham was a stocky 45-year old with dark brown hair cut somewhat longer than military-style. His hands were those of a skilled machinist; strong, capable of tightening steam boiler stay bolts with an open-end wrench but sensitive enough to calibrate a milling machine to a tolerance of a 1,000th of an inch. Sitting hunched over complicated machinery had bowed his neck and upper back into a permanent curve. As a result, his normal height of 5 feet 9 inches was reduced to 5 feet 6 inches.

Cunningham passed the large cup around to Collier, Jenson and McPherson. The test material turned out to be a hotdog in a 16-ounce glass measuring cup filled with water.

The last man in line, McPherson took the cup, put the hotdog in his mouth and sucked the water off it. Smirking at Heinbaum, he put the dog back into the cup, noisily licked his fingers and sang, “I wish I had an Oscar Meyer wiener. Everyone would be in love with me!”

Visibly irritated, Heinbaum shot back, “I thought a wiener might get your attention, McPherson.”

To which the Scotsman replied, “Only the tasty ones, Heiny. Only the tasty ones.”

“Cut the horseplay and get on with it,” Collier ordered, trying his best to keep a grin off his face.

Cunningham, chuckling slightly, lifted the heavy lid of the emitter box, placed the wiener cup in the open space and closed the lid.

“Now Gentlemen, observe,” Heinbaum said, and with a dramatic flourish put his finger down on an electrical switch and closed the toggle.

A low humming sound emanated from the cabinet. Peering at his wristwatch, Heinbaum opened the toggle switch at the end of 30 seconds and ordered Cunningham to remove the test materials from the box. Putting on some oven mitts, Cunningham opened the heavy lid and removed the glass cup. The water in the cup was vigorously boiling and the hotdog had heated to the point it bulged and cracked. Heinbaum looked at Collier, Jenson and McPherson with a triumphant look and wide smile.

“There you are, Gentlemen,” he purred. “I have successfully duplicated the heat ray!”

McPherson burst out laughing. “Great, Doc. Now all we have to do is build a gigantic metal box, stuff the Chrysallamans inside it, close the lid and bake ’em like a Thanksgiving turkey. Brilliant!”

Sputtering with anger and clinching his fists, Heinbaum spat back, “You cretinous lout! You don’t have the intelligence to realize you’re standing in the presence of genius!”

The grin on the Scot’s face got so big it looked like his face was going to split open. Lifting his right hand and bowing his head so that his red curls bounced a little, McPherson replied, “You know, Heiny, you’re right! Sorry for my confusion.”

His grin was replaced with a smirk as his eyes twinkled. “For a moment there I forgot I was in the presence of genius and thought I was listening to an appliance salesman at Sears.”

Collier could see a fight was brewing between the two. He also realized Heinbaum and McPherson would have to work closely together to build the weapons needed to battle the Chrysallamans. Looking severely at McPherson, he said, “Lieutenant McPherson. I ordered the horseplay to stop. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Staring at McPherson as only a superior officer can do, he continued, “Let me remind you that your duties require you to assist and partner with Dr. Heinbaum in the development of weapons based on the Chrysallaman tech. He has made progress, and I now deem it necessary for you to share bunk and laboratory space with him starting today.”

“Sir, I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” McPherson responded with a salute and a comical mixture of dread and despondency. It hadn’t occurred to him he would have to spend large amounts of time with Heinbaum.

Heinbaum was equally comical. His close-set eyes narrowed and the furrows in his brow became even more pronounced. “General Collier, I cannot possibly work with this ignorant fool!” as he pointed at McPherson. “He mocks me and my work. He is incapable of comprehending the depth of my intellect. There is no way he could ever help me with my research.”

Off to the side, out of the line of sight of the three men, Mike Jenson and Walter looked sideways at each other. Almost simultaneously, they shook their heads in disbelief as the scene unfolded before them. To one side stood Heinbaum, arms crossed and chin jutted out. On the other side stood McPherson, arms also crossed and chin jutted out. Collier stood between the men. It looked like a boxing match was going to break out between the two with Collier as the referee.

The General was definitely up to the task of ending the standoff. “Let me assure both of you that you may start something, but I’ll permanently end it.”

Pausing to let his words sink in, he continued, “You will work together, or I’ll find others who will. I’ll remove both of you from these facilities. Dr. Heinbaum, you will be permanently assigned to radiation poisoning research duties at the Los Alamos facility in New Mexico where you will live out the rest of your days. Lieutenant McPherson, you will be assigned to our Antarctic base where you will drill ice cores and supervise weather reports for the rest of your days.”

Both men looked thunderstruck.

Heinbaum proclaimed, but with little enthusiasm, “You can’t do that.”

To which Collier replied. “You really don’t want to test me, Doctor.”

Five days later, the collaboration between Heinbaum and McPherson resulted in a positive leap forward, and that is what angered and frustrated Heinbaum as he reminisced about the first demonstration of his heat ray and jumped again at the startling racking of a pistol slide.

It seemed like McPherson took extreme pleasure in embarrassing and irritating him. Heinbaum could feel his blood pressure rising as he thought back about this morning’s calamity.

Shortly after Collier and Jenson had departed, McPherson had taken a claw hammer and a flathead screwdriver from supplies and left the lab. He returned about an hour later hefting a long, black glassine filament he pried from the outer edge of the saucer. The filament had a bulbous head on one of its ends.

Working with Cunningham for the next few days, he drilled a hole into the lead chamber of the emitter box where Heinbaum’s heat ray bulb was seated and inserted the thinner end of the filament into the hole so it was exposed to the emitter bulb. He then caulked the hole with some silver gunk he’d found in the items inventoried from the saucer.

This morning, McPherson had placed the same glass cup full of water on the workbench about 7 feet in front of the bulbous end of the filament and put 2 hotdogs in it. Calling in an overly loud voice for Heinbaum to join him, McPherson had indicated Heinbaum should stand to the side of the emitter box about 3 feet away from the hotdog filled measuring cup. Cunningham had positioned himself at the end of the lead box opposite the cup, arms folded across his chest. McPherson had walked back to the rear of the emitter box where the activating toggle was located.

“Now, Doc, observe,” McPherson had said with the same tone and tenor of voice Heinbaum had used in the first demonstration days earlier. With the same dramatic flourish used by Heinbaum, he put his finger down on the electrical switch and closed the toggle.

The results were instantaneous and violent. The water in the cup began to boil within 5 seconds and then with a loud, greasy-sounding pop, both hotdogs exploded into pink goo that splattered all over Heinbaum’s nice, white lab coat.

Grinning like a red-haired demon, McPherson had said in an insincere manner, “Oh, sorry Doc. I thought you were out of the debris zone.”

A blood vessel in Heinbaum’s forehead began to pound as he thought of the humiliation. With a deep-seated menace, he mused, “That cursed, red-headed Scotsman will not get the better of me. I’ll discover the secret of the black filament and when I do, I’ll create a weapon that will cook Jerome McPherson just like the turkey he is.”

Smiling to himself, Heinbaum rose from his lab stool, and headed toward the exit door, involuntarily jumping as the pistol slide was racked several times.