Scooby Doo and Al Gore in the 9th Dimension

by jommy

Scooby Doo and the gang are trying to get on with their lives. Velma is finishing a degree in Physics, and her conservation work has drawn the attention of Al Gore. The gang reunites to help Velma with a demonstration, and things go horribly wrong.

1. Chapter 1

Scooby Doo and Al Gore in the 9th Dimension

CHAPTER 1

"Help me carry these, Scooby."

"Rokay." Scooby took three peanut butter, bacon and mayonnaise sandwiches off the top of the stack that Shaggy was trying to see around as they walked up The Hill. The wind blew a plastic sandwich bag past Shaggy's head, then another, and another.

"Scooby, you're supposed to help me carry them, not eat them." Scooby was going to say that he was carrying them, after a fashion, but peanut butter always made his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. And for Scooby, that was a lot of sticking. "These are for Velma, Mr. Al Gore and the rest of the gang. You know that. Man! I'm glad we finally got up this hill. Scooby, can you get that door?"

"Lmmnp. Nu hnnns."

"What?"

Gulp. "Rook! No hands!"

"This is no time to be playing around, Scooby. I'm going to drop these things. Open the door!"

"No, rearry. No hands."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot."

"Here, fellas, let me get that for you." A voice from behind made them both turn their heads, and they recognized a face they had seen on television many times.

"Hey, man! You're Al Gore! I almost voted for you!"

"Almost? What happened?"

"They wouldn't accept Scooby's voter registration card."

"I can't imagine why."

"Well, he insisted on carrying it himself, and it got all soggy."

"Are you sure you don't need help with those?"

"Naw, we're just going downstairs."

"Shaggy, rets take the erorator."

"Cool idea, man."

The old elevator ground its way down to the basement, and Mr. Gore looked up at the cables through the grate overhead. "This must be a freight elevator. It doesn't look like it's really designed for people."

"Good thing, too. Velma's had us dragging all kinds of freaky scientific equipment down here for weeks."

"Yeah, reaky!"

"You said it, Scoob. I've never seen so many wires and coils and boxes with dials and knobs. I asked her if she was making a monster…."

The elevator stopped with shudder, and the door scraped open to reveal what could easily have been Frankenstein's workshop. A softly-hissing man-sized tank of liquid nitrogen on castors was attached to insulated pipes that went beneath the floor. Banks of blue capacitors lined the walls, thick black cables snaked through the dusty, rusty spider-webbed pipes hung from the ceiling and in the center of what had been an old machine shop a giant aluminum donut was suspended from a wide copper coil. On the floor in the middle of the room was a wide ring of donut-shaped magnets. In the middle, seemingly at the center of all the attention, sat an incongruous wooden stool supporting a small glass of water. Velma's head was visible behind the only modern-looking apparatus in the room, a small laptop computer on a card table.

Al Gore hung back, trying to take it all in, but Shaggy and Scooby walked unconcernedly across the room, through the magnets, straight to a small card table sitting next to a warning tape strung three feet in front of a wall of bright blue cans with wires running from them. The warning tape read, "Danger, High Amperage." With a grateful sigh, Shaggy put down the plate of sandwiches. Al Gore wandered slowly around the lab. After a long look at the warning tape he said, "I thought it was supposed to say 'Warning, High Voltage'."

"Keep your distance. It's not the volts that get you. It's the amps. Any single one of those capacitors can shock you graveyard dead, and you're looking at well over a thousand of them." Velma looked up. "Oh, hey! I knew the boys had arrived, but I didn't know you were with them. Welcome to The Hill, Mr. Vice President."

"It looks more like the cellar."

"Yeah, well, this is the only place the university had to let me work, the only place big enough, that is. It's kind of creepy, but once you get used to it it's not so bad. I don't get a lot of visitors."

"Your emails were interesting, but they didn't do justice to what you've built here."

"Don't be too impressed. I would have used more modern equipment, but my grant only covered the cost of the capacitors. Uh, the blue cans all over the wall. They store electricity."

"Like batteries?"

"Kind of, except they don't use chemistry to do it. You see, Mr. Gore…"

"Call me Al."

"….you see, Al, these cans are really long sheets of metal with a dielectric insulator sandwiched between them. The metal sandwiches are rolled up into these cans, but that doesn't change their basic geometry. Each plate slowly stores up energy and then releases it all at once. They're standard equipment on disposable flash cameras, only much smaller."

"You mean that eeeEEE sound my camera makes…"

"Is a charging capacitor. Exactly! And then it lets it all go at once and you get a flash of light. Only here, I'm using that energy for a different purpose."

"I'm curious about the big metal donut on the ceiling. That's a Tesla coil, isn't it?"

"Yes! I found it in storage. There used to be a professor here in the mid-50's who used it for classroom demonstrations, but then one day a student got struck by lightning so the university made him promise to get rid of it. Here never did, thankfully, but it wasn't listed in the official laboratory inventory, so I collected it."

"Not cool, man! That' thing is crazy heavy!"

"Rea! Razy heavy!"

"Scooby had to use a forklift just to get it in place. Hey, Velma, hauling all these sandwiches up the hill made us kinda hungry."

"Go ahead, boys, just leave some for the rest of the gang when they get here. Scooby! Take it out of the plastic first!"

Al looked at the towering pile of sandwiches and shook his head. "I may be wrong about this, but do some of those sandwiches have peanut butter and anchovies on them?"

"Only the ones on top. I got Shaggy and Scooby jobs at the campus cafeteria. They get to clean up at night, and anything left over is fair game. Don't worry, there's ham and cheese on the bottom. Still, we'll want some drinks. Normally I don't allow beverages in here, but tonight is a special occasion."

"Don't break any rules on my account."

"Oh, don't worry. As long as you don't spill any liquids on the capacitor banks nothing can go wrong. It's why I put up the warning tape. Hey, guys!"

"Hmmnmg?" Shaggy and Scooby looked up, their mouths full.

"My purse is by the door, and I've got a handful of quarters in the bottom. Go get us something to drink out of the machine at the end of the hall. Al, what would you like?"

"Well, I don't normally do bottled water, but that's probably the most innocuous thing available."

"Daphne and Freddy will be here any minute. Shaggy, get Freddy a cola and Daphne a diet something. Mr. Gore and I will have bottled water. Get yourselves whatever you want, okay?"

"Rokay!"

"And Scooby, try not to drool on my purse!"

"Rokay!"

"While they're gone, perhaps you can explain exactly what you're doing here. I have a good scientific background, but I'm still not entirely sure what all this equipment does. You said it was an experiment in quantum phase change and that it has something to do with energy conservation."

"Yes, sir. You see, most of the energy used to create power is heat energy used to boil water for steam turbines, and most of that energy is wasted. Nuclear power plants, for instance, use nuclear fission to boil water which is then used to boil other water which pushes a turbine in a circle which turns a rotor hooked to a generator which creates electricity. It's the most efficient thing we've got, next to hydroelectric power, and it's still incredibly wasteful."

"Kind of like using a chainsaw to cut butter."

"Exactly. My doctoral dissertation in Physics investigates the possibility of using quantum mechanics to boil water. You see, there are quantum effects at work in the change of state, but most of them get washed out because Planck's constant is so small. You don't see quantum effects unless you can significantly vary the potential across a distance much less than the DeBroglie wavelength of the subatomic particle in question, in this case the water molecule. See?"

"I'm afraid you lost me there."

Down the hall, standing in the dim light of the soda vending machine, Scooby put down Velma's purse and nosed around in the bottom.

"Man, I wish we were back in the kitchen. Ever since you rigged the soda machine to dispense free Crud Cola I've been craving the stuff. All they've got here is Diet Crud."

"Ret one for Raphne."

"Groovy, man. Daphne likes diet anything. I'll get Freddy a Dr. Snider. Hmm. I think I'll have one, too. You want one? It's a lot like Crud, only it tastes like prunes."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"Oh, man, Mr. Gore and Velma want water, and it's out. Hey! Dude! Quit scratching! You got fleas or something?"

"What? No! No freas! Just itchy."

"Are you sure, man, cause last night something bit me and I think it came from your side of the bed."

"Seriousry! No freas!"

"Well, okay then, but if you don't start wearing a flea collar I will."

"Heee, hee-hee."

"I think there's a pitcher of water in the fridge at the end of the hall. We'll get that and two glasses."

"Rokay!"

Outside, Velma and Freddy pulled up in the Mystery Machine. It was belching smoke and clanked and shuddered after Freddy turned it off. Velma frowned.

"Why did you have to pick me up in this old thing? Don't you have a better car?"

"Well, I thought, since we were all going to be together again and everything, it might be fun to take it out for a spin. You know, maybe we could take a ride in the old girl after this is over, just for ….."

"Freddy, don't start. We had fun, sure, but those days are over. I'm in television news, Velma's finishing her degree, even Shaggy and Scooby have jobs, sort of. It's time for you to move on."

"Shaggy and Scooby will never change."

"Yeah, maybe you're right about that. Still, there is no excuse for you sitting around doing nothing."

"I'm not sitting around! I've got my Investigator's license. I just haven't got many clients right now."

"Face it, Freddy. You're spending all your time taking pictures of other people through a banged-up telephoto lens, digging through old court records and helping little old ladies spy on their cheating boyfriends. You spend a lot of time just sitting around and you know it."

"It hasn't picked up yet. I'm still paying my dues. Give it time! When it does, you just wait and see. I'll get some cases like the ones we used to get, and then you and the rest of the gang won't be able to resist. I'll get the Mystery Machine fixed up, we'll go do a few investigations, and it'll be like old times."

Daphne sighed. "Well, today you're my camera crew. Come on. Velma's waiting for us." She picked up a notebook and slid a pen behind her ear.

"I thought you normally did the weather report."

"I do, but this is a chance for me to do some serious reporting."

"Once a weather-girl, always a weather-girl."

"I heard that."

"So the Tesla coil provides the body of the electric field, but the field lines themselves are twisted by the magnets on the outside. Once the magnets are charged up I begin to run an alternating current through a low-temperature ceramic superconductor buried in the floor. This induces a current in the glass of water. Now, as you may know, an electric current moving through a magnetic field produces a force perpendicular to both the current and the field, but because the field lines are already twisted through three dimensions it is my belief that the force will be in the direction of a higher dimension. This will cause the angular momentum of the subatomic particles in the water molecules to rotate out of our timespace which will, in theory, lower the DeBroglie wavelength enough to be affected by the high gradient of the magnetic field, and voila! Quantum phase change!"

Al Gore rubbed his chin with his right hand and cut his eyes down at Velma. "So the water will…."

"Evaporate. Yes."

"And when we turn off the field?"

"We should see a small bit of rain over the stool."

"I thought water was a bad thing to have around this equipment."

"Oh, a couple of ounces won't matter. And besides, we'll have the magnets turned off by then. All the dangerous amps will be in the blue cans against the wall, far away from the center of the lab."

"Well, it sounds like you know what you're doing. I'm not sure I know what you mean by 'higher dimension,' though. I always thought the fourth dimension was time."

"Oh, it probably is, although nobody really knows for sure. A dimension is just a direction. You know the three standard dimensions, up and down, left and right, forward and back. Well, if you want to move something through a higher dimension you've just got to send it in a direction that's normal to the first three."

"Now you've really lost me. Nothing about that sentence sounded 'normal'."

"Okay," Daphne said, picking up a sandwich. "This is a real Shaggy special: mustard, grits and relish on rye. Now suppose we want to send this sandwich to a higher dimension."

"That sandwich came from some other dimension."

"No doubt. Now if I move it toward you or away from you…"

"Away would be nice."

"…that's one-dimensional motion. Imagine every point in that sandwich leaving a trail. You know, kind of like a sparkler at night. Follow?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Well, to move this sandwich, or anything else for that matter, through a higher dimension all I've got to do is move it in such a way that no point inside the sandwich crosses the trail of any other point inside the sandwich. Follow?"

"I'm not sure. I think so. Anyway, you mean you're going to move that glass of water through a higher dimension?"

"No, not exactly. Actually moving it through a higher dimension would take more power than I'd care to be around. I'm just going to point it in that direction and hope that the DeBroglie wavelength turns with it."

Daphne and Freddy appeared at the door. Daphne walked across the floor with her hand out. "It's great to meet you, Mr. Vice-President. It's a real honor. And if you can follow what Velma is talking about, you're way ahead of me."

Al Gore shook her hand and smiled. "I recognize you from the local weather report I downloaded before I drove in from Carthage."

"Yes, that's my usual beat these days. Sorry to hear about your Mom. I always wanted to meet her."

"I'm sure she would have enjoyed meeting you. She always did admire women of strength and confidence."

Daphne tried not to blush and failed. "This is Freddy."

"Good evening, Mr. Gore. I'm just here to hold the camera. Say, can you understand Velma's techno-speak?"

"Some of it."

Daphne moved out toward the center of the lab. "Freddy, the lighting is best right here. Mr. Gore, would you mind very much if we filmed you and Velma finishing your discussion of the technical aspects of her experiment? I've already got interviews with Velma in the can, but I need some human interest shots. And Shaggy? Scooby? Could you please move a bit too the left? What is that you're eating?"

"Peanut butter and kim chee," Shaggy said around a mouthful. "Don't knock it 'till you've tried it."

"Well, just do it somewhere else. And pull that table out of the way."

While the interview continued in the middle of the lab, Shaggy balanced a diminished tray of sandwiches on one hand and held a pitcher of water in the other. "Just pull the table back toward that yellow tape, Scooby. It'll be okay, I think." Shaggy put the pitcher of water on the tray next to a couple of plastic red cups while Scooby fished cans of soda out of the bottom of Velma's purse. Then they sat down and listened to the rest of the interview.

"…and so far my success has been limited by the amount of current available to the Tesla coil, but with the addition of this new bank of capacitors I hope to have success. Do you have any questions Al, er, Mr. Gore?"

"It all seems very impressive, but I'm sure there are those who would say that the process requires a lot more energy than it saves. After all, Velma, you are only boiling two ounces of water."

"They would be right about that, Mr. Gore. Right now I'm just trying to prove that the process works. Once I hit the threshold energy there is no limit on the amount of mass that can be placed into the system."

"If your theory is correct, how will this process help the environment?"

"I'm glad you asked. Existing boilers in conventional power plants could be replaced by my process, and tremendous amounts of room-temperature steam could be used to turn the turbines currently powered by wasteful high-temperature systems that run on fossil fuels."

Daphne cut in. "Is the process ready for testing now?"

"Absolutely, Daphne, although I will need everybody's help." Velma went around the room, placing Daphne at the control valve for the liquid nitrogen, Shaggy at the main switches for the power supply, Freddy stood atop a ladder at the Tesla coil's voltage regulator and Scooby stood next to a large red lever which activated the magnetic toroids around the stool and glass of water. "Al, stand over here and help me watch that voltimeter. This Tesla coil can produce well over four million volts, but past three million it starts throwing lightning bolts. Let me know when it gets to 2,800,000. You'll have to yell. It's going to be loud. Everybody ready? Any questions?"

"Yes, I have one," said Al. "How do you manage this when we're not here."

"Normally I know the setting and most of these are on automatic trips, but today I'm using more amperage than ever before and I want to have complete control over the process. The capacitor banks have been charging for 36 hours and I'm going to need all that energy to make this happen. Okay, Daphne, open the valve to the liquid nitrogen."

Daphne slipped on a pair of thickly insulated gloves, leaned up and turned a large metal wheel. Instantly a furious hissing sound filled the room and frost appeared around the valve attaching the tank to the pipes that ran down beneath the floor. Under their feet a cracking, popping sound could be heard. "Relax everybody," shouted Velma, "that's just the superconductors losing heat energy." She squinted at the screen of her laptop and pushed her glasses up on her nose. "The ceramic is reaching a temperature of 73 Kelvin……NOW! Shaggy, throw the switch!"

"Like, man, that is retro-cool!" Shaggy pulled down on the level of a wall-mounted power supply and it threw blue sparks past Shaggy's head as he backed away. "Whoah! Not cool, man! Not cool!"

"Now, Freddie, start turning that dial, very slowly, until Mr. Gore tells you to stop. Al, sing out as soon as your meter reads 2.8 million volts!" A low rumbling sound began as the capacitors began their slow discharge, a sound which rose in pitch and volume as Mr. Gore read off the gauge.

"600,000 volts, 800, one-million…it's climbing faster…1.8, 2.5, 2.7,2.8 million…it's slowing down now…2.9 million…three million volts!"

"Now Freddy," shouted Velma," Ease back on that wheel!"

"3.1, 3.2…Velma, this isn't good…3.3 million…"

A faint blue nimbus appeared around the Tesla coil and Freddy's hair fairly leaped straight up off his head. He took his hands off the wheel.

"No, Freddy! Turn the wheel! Turn it now!"

Freddy grabbed the wheel and sparks flew between his fingers as he yanked it back to the left. The blueness subsided and was replaced by a hum that set everyone's teeth on edge.

"That's perfect, Freddy!" shouted Velma. "Great job!"

Freddy's answer was drowned out as the hum rose in volume and the pitcher of water and plate of food started rattling around the table. The glass of water in the center of the lab remained still. Scooby held his paws over his ears and looked at Velma, who mouthed "NOW!" Scooby leaped at the red lever with both front feet and pulled it down.

Everything stopped. The noise quit, except for a quiet hissing coming from the valve next to Daphne's head. For a few seconds, nobody said anything, until Shaggy asked, "Oh, man, that was nuts! Did it work?"

Slowly all eyes turned to the center of the lab. There, sitting quietly on a stool, was an empty glass of water. Al Gore wiped his face with a handkerchief and said, "Well, I'll be." He started to walk toward the center of the lab when Velma reached out and stopped him. Careful, Al, the field is still on. I'm not sure what would happen if you walked in there right now. Everybody stay where you are! Okay, Scooby, lift that lever to the off position. Now."

Scooby shrugged and said, "Rokay." He lifted the lever and nothing happened except for a light rain over the wooden stool in the middle of the magnets. Velma whooped. "It works!"

"Is it safe now?" asked Al Gore.

"Unless you've got a pacemaker, you can walk right in there and pick up the glass. The energy is all stored in the field now, and all the equipment has to do is keep the field going. Most of its energy is rotated out of our manifold of perception, and as long as the magnetic field remains stable we should be just fine."

Shaggy scratched his head. "So, like what does that mean? Is it safe or not?"

Velma smiled and walked serenely into the middle of the lab, up to the stool and picked up the empty glass. "Oh yes, it's quite safe." Cheers went up all around the room. Daphne shouted over the noise, "Before we start the celebration, let's get a picture. Everybody get behind Velma."

Scooby was already at the table of sandwiches stuffing a peanut butter and pork chop with gravy on wheat into his mouth. The vibrations had moved the tray, end-loaded with a pitcher of water, slightly over the edge of the card table. Shaggy whispered, "Hey, Scoob, get me one of those!"

Scooby swallowed and said, "Right, Shaggy! One or two?"

"Make it three, and grab me a soda."

Daphne was arranging her photo. Velma was sitting on the (slightly damp) wooden stool, holding the empty glass, with Al Gore proudly smiling behind her. On his left was Daphne, saying "Freddy, just set it to record and come over here. I'll edit the tape later, but I want you in this shot."

Velma looked over her shoulder. "Come on, you two! We'll all eat in a minute. This is for posterity!"

Shaggy, holding a sandwich behind his back with one bite out of it, walked into the circle while Scooby grabbed three more sandwiches off the end of the tray and followed him. The camera blithely recorded what happened. At the moment Scooby stepped into the shot, still chewing, the overbalanced tray began to tilt and slip toward the wall of blue capacitor cans. It fell gracefully and hit the floor, resulting in a hyperbolic arc of water that leaped toward the exposed wires behind the yellow warning tape. As the video continued to record, the water completed the connection and the capacitors began to short out, like automatic gunfire, in an accelerating chain reaction which raced around the room to the control switch for the electromagnets. A large blue arc of electricity terminated in the fuse box next to Scooby's red lever and a sound like a hive of giant angry hornets filled the room. The video camera, flooded with electromagnetic radiation, recorded a completely white screen for half a second and then slowly faded back in. All was quiet and dark in the room except for the click of the dim red emergency exit lights over the door. In the center of the lab a turtleneck sweater and a short skirt were draped over a wooden stool surrounded by a pile of clothes, belts and shoes with the socks hanging out. On the top of the pile sat a pair of round glasses with thick black frames, a red dog collar with a diamond-shaped tag, three empty sandwich bags and one empty water glass.