56. House of Portals.
1. Lifting Technology.
Ben is an avid technology fanatic. He likes to try out things that he heard other people say might work, or that he found in articles.
Today he wants to try out Lifter technology. He has followed some instructions that may or may not be right and then bought, built or borrowed suitable equipment. He has read that testing this might be dangerous, and he has added a wooden barrier between him, his controls, his equipment and the lifter in his large garden shed.
The lifter is of light wooden lattice construction with sharp nails protruding from its underside; all of the nails are wired together, each ready to produce ion trails like a standard air purifying ioniser. This is unlikely to produce much lift, but Ben hopes it might. The whole thing is resting on a wooden cradle but is electrically insulated from it by plastic supports.
Ben's equipment consists of high voltage generators with some degree of control of the voltage produced. It all looks rather ramshackle, but he, at least, is pleased with it.
Ben is standing on an upturned washing up bowl to insulate himself from the floor. He doesn't want any accidents!
He switches it on and starts to ramp up the high-tension voltage using the controls on his equipment. A few leaves that had blown in from outside and are lying on the floor start to move slightly in the small draught produced. He is encouraged that his kit can at least do something, and he continues to wind the voltage up higher. The leaves start to blow around the hut lazily. The lifter moves briefly in its cradle. It starts rattling and he winds the voltage up further. Suddenly the lifter lifts out of its cradle, moves towards a wall and touches it. The lifter suddenly twists, and the thin wires connecting power to the lifter pull out of their terminals. The lifter plummets to the floor and hits hard, breaking into pieces.
Ben turns off the power and waits a minute for the capacitors to drain before he steps into the lifter area in the hut. He glances out of the window and is horrified to see his girlfriend, Zoe, lying still on her back on the lawn. He rushes outside and takes her pulse. Zero. He tries CPR to revive her, and she recovers soon and suddenly. But then she is angry. Very angry! .
"What on Earth were you doing in there?" Zoe demands to know.
"Were you watching?" Ben asks.
"Yes! That thing hit the wall and I got a huge electric shock! What was it? What were you doing?"
"It's supposed to be a possible totally new form of propulsion," Ben says.
"That's such a dangerous form of propulsion! How's it supposed to work?" Zoe demands.
"There's lots of downward pointing sharp points, highly charged. They're all supposed to create a wind to lift the thing," Ben says.
"So, it's like my ionizer? You only get a tiny draught from that!" Zoe states.
"That's probably why it doesn't do much. I had to put a massive voltage on it before it moved at all. It just wasn't scaling up the lifting power." Ben groans and puts his arms around Zoe. "I'm really sorry. I'll give that one up. You are worth far, far more than any of that."
He apologises profusely and Zoe calms down. She has had a nasty experience!
Ben is a fanatic about unusual technology.
The Doctor is looking for inventive people to help solve a problem...
Ben and Zoe retreat from the garden into Ben's house and put the kettle on. Ben goes to their lounge while Zoe makes two steaming hot cups of tea and takes them through to the lounge. Almost immediately the doorbell is heard. Zoe goes to answer.
The Doctor and his companion, Chloe, are standing near the doorstep.
The Doctor has known Chloe from her cradle and treated her to educational days out. Now Chloe is nearly thirty years old, and the Doctor's most recent regeneration has left him looking ... about thirty, too, they have decided to help the Universe to be a better place together.
Chloe's father, Devyon, had developed a form of regeneration that she now fully benefits from.
"We're looking for someone special who loves experimenting with technology," the Doctor says.
Chloe smiles. "Is there someone here who likes playing with dangerous technology?"
They know there is but need an introduction.
Zoe is still shaking from her ordeal. "Yes, Ben is nuts about technology."
The Doctor shows Zoe his psychic paper wallet.
"Shed repair experts?" Zoe exclaims. .
"Erm, yes," the Doctor says, rather embarrassed at his being underrated yet again. "You might have a problem with your shed?"
"Yes," Zoe says humorously. "You might take it away. That would stop Ben tinkering! You'd better come in."
These people have obviously come to the right place, she thinks.
They enter the lounge and see Ben sitting in an armchair. He is playing with his pet white mouse which he has just persuaded to go into his top jacket pocket. He is feeling guilty about his shed experiments and wondering whether these visitors are from the police, MI5 or even the US Department of Defence. How could they have heard about his shed activities? He had thought he was keeping them secret!
"I've done nothing wrong," he starts off, trying to avoid shouldering any blame.
"Hello," Chloe says. "We haven't either." She giggles, distracting him and trying to put him at his ease.
Zoe indicates a seat for Chloe. She sits down happily. "I'm Chloe and this is the Doctor."
The Doctor decides he must start asking. "Okay, I'm looking for someone who is daring and adventurous to explore and discover something in a field."
Ben thinks it might be in his field of electronics. He is immediately interested and wants to treat this like an interview, although a rather unorthodox interview.
"I'm interested. I know a lot about electronics."
Chloe turns to Zoe to make conversation and to find out more about her. "Are you working?"
"Yes, I'm a laboratory technician," Zoe says. "I'm testing for diseases."
"That's so useful here just now," Chloe says.
The Doctor would prefer people who can think on their feet for this task. "We don't know what we might be up against," he says.
"We don't either," Zoe says. "We could be testing for any number of diseases."
"There's all these doors," the Doctor starts saying. He finds he struggles when telling people about situations.
"Just my thing," Ben jokes. "The trouble I've had with my shed door recently! But I bet they aren't ordinary wooden doors!" He is guessing, but there can't be an adventure purely about ordinary wooden doors, can there?
"True, they aren't," the Doctor admits. He is rather deflected from his task of asking these folks if they would join him. He looks at Chloe, hoping she might dig him out of his momentary difficulty.
"Would you help us?" Chloe asks. Sometimes she sees the way to the very completion of the problem, apparently effortlessly. The Doctor is very glad to have her helping.
Both Ben and Zoe are clearly interested and nod their approval.
What does Ben envisage? Will the challenge fulfil or disappoint him?