THREE
"Who are you?" Piper demanded, tensing for an attack.
"You're real?" questioned the man. "You're actually here? No, that's not possible. You can't be real. I must be imagining you."
"You'd better start talking or I'll show you just how real I am," said Piper. "Now, who are you and what do you know about all this?"
"My name is Malcolm Spencer," said the man. "I'm a professor of applied physics at CalTech."
"CalTech?" questioned Piper. "That's in Los Angeles. What are you doing here?"
"I'm doing some consulting work for a private firm in San Francisco," said Malcolm. "I thought I was the only one who wasn't affected. But you can't be here. It's impossible. Anyone outside the bubble would have been affected."
"Bubble?" questioned Piper. "What bubble? What are you rambling about?"
"Look," said Malcolm, "I haven't eaten in what seems like hours. Frankly I don't know how long it's been. There's no way to judge time. Let's go find some place to get something to eat and I'll try to explain everything to you. At least everything I understand."
"I'm on my way to see my sister," said Piper. "We can get something to eat after that."
"Okay," said Malcolm. "But I'm afraid you'll find her in the same state as everyone else."
They walked to the paper and found Phoebe in her office at her desk. She appeared to be working on her column. She was as frozen as everyone else.
"I told you she would be affected," said Malcolm. "Everyone is. Everyone except you and I. Now, about something to eat."
"Okay," said Piper. "Only don't try anything funny."
"Believe me," said Malcolm, "I'm just glad to find another person who's been unaffected. Being all alone is rather unsettling."
They walked a short distance to a nearby restaurant where Piper fixed them both some sandwiches to eat. None of the stoves seemed to work and the few flames she had seen hadn't even produced any heat. As they ate their sandwiches, Malcolm told Piper everything he knew.
"As I said," said Malcolm, "I'm a professor at CalTech in applied physics. I'm here in San Francisco doing some consulting work with Merrit Industries. They're a private company that deals in a great many ventures."
"Yeah, I've seen their signs around town," said Piper. "What does that have to do with what's happening? And how are you involved?"
"It has everything to do with it," said Malcolm. "And I'm involved because I'm the one who caused it."
"What?" Piper questioned. "You caused all this? What kind of demon are you?"
"Demon?" Malcolm questioned. "I'm no demon. Demons are ancient myths. They don't really exist."
"Okay," said Piper, "so just how did you cause time to suddenly stop?"
"Several years ago one of my colleagues developed a theory," said Malcolm. "It involved alternating fields of electromagnetic current. I'm afraid the specific explanation would take far too long and be much too complicated for a layperson to understand. But what the theory essentially says is that it should be possible to create a static temporal bubble in a specific location."
"Static temporal bubble?" Piper asked not understanding what Malcolm was saying. "Any way you could explain that a little better in English?"
"Essentially," said Malcolm, "the theory says that by modulating specific electromagnetic fields to a particular frequency and interconnecting them at multiple points it should be possible to create a bubble of sorts. Everything inside the bubble would theoretically be isolated outside the space-time continuum effectively stopping time as long as the bubble were intact."
"Stop time?" Piper said. "Using electromagnetic fields?'
"As I said," said Malcolm, "it's much more complicated than that. There's a great deal more involved than just modulating the frequency of electromagnetic fields. Merrit Industries was working on a prototype device that was supposed to help us create the first static bubble."
"But something went wrong," said Piper.
"Yes," said Malcolm. "I'm not sure exactly what happened. I haven't had a chance to evaluate the results of our first test. All I know is that at approximately three forty five this afternoon the device went online. This," he looked around, "is the result."
"Three fifty one to be exact," said Piper, showing Malcolm her watch. "I was working at my club when it happened. So, if everything everywhere is frozen in time, how come you weren't affected?"
"I was at the control panel," said Malcolm. "When the bubble was generated it was larger than we anticipated. I was caught on the periphery of the bubble but not actually inside it. All I can surmise is that I was somehow protected from the time freeze. What I don't understand is why someone outside the bubble wasn't affected?"
"I'm a witch," said Piper. "One of my abilities is the ability to freeze time. Maybe that kept me from being affected."
"Witches don't exist," said Malcolm. "They're like the demons you mentioned. They're myths and legends created by people who couldn't explain things scientifically."
"Oh, we exist, all right," said Piper. "Do you have another explanation?"
"Frankly, no," said Malcolm. "But that doesn't mean I'm buying that you're a witch."
"Fine, believe what you want," said Piper. "You haven't explained why this static temporal bubble didn't work the way it was supposed to."
"I don't really know," said Malcolm. "All of our calculations were very precise. All I can tell you is that the device worked in reverse. Instead of creating a slice of time, if you will, inside the bubble, it froze everything outside of it."
"So time is still normal inside this bubble?" Piper asked.
"Yes," said Malcolm. "Time seems to be progressing normally inside the bubble but outside time is effectively frozen."
"So what's the problem?" Piper asked. "Just break this bubble and shut the machine down."
"I can't," said Malcolm. "The bubble is created by intersecting electromagnetic fields. It's created what used to be called a force field in the old science fiction movies. It's an energy field of such magnitude that nothing can physically pass through it. And it surrounds the entire device just like a bubble."
"Okay," said Piper, "how is it powered if everything is frozen?"
"It's powered by a miniature nuclear reactor," said Malcolm. "We needed the massive energy the nuclear reactor produces to generate the electromagnetic fields for our static bubble."
"Fine," said Piper. "How long before this nuclear reactor runs down? Even nuclear reactors don't have unlimited amounts of power."
"No, they don't," said Malcolm. "But they're the longest lasting power source known to our science. I'm afraid waiting for them to run down isn't an option."
"Why not?" Piper asked.
"Because this particular reactor is estimated to have a life expectancy of nearly twenty five thousand years, that's why not," said Malcolm.
