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"Are you telling me that you're going to get someone in the government to
let us in to a top secret lab site? Then they're going to give us a
demonstration of some new, super-secret, cutting-edge technology? They'll do
that AFTER they went to so much trouble to keep the very existence of this
lab a secret? There's no way they'd let us in."
"No man," Albert said, "the DOD abandoned the lab back in the early 90's.
Budget cuts and all. They packed up and left."
"What are you talking about then?" I asked.
"The hillbillies, man, the hillbillies. They've moved in and taken over the
whole complex."
Albert started filling me in. "Living in the lab complex is much nicer
living than living in your typical tar paper shack. At first they just lived
in the lab - squatters. Then their kids started getting curious and fiddling
with all the machines. They've got old Arpanet connections to their
computers and those connections in turn connect them to the Internet. They
started reading and learning and exploring. Turns out that they never had
anything interesting going on in their lives, so they never did much. Once
they caught a glimpse of the world beyond the Ozarks generations of pent-up
curiosity started pouring out. You wouldn't believe how fast they've learned
about the world outside, about science, history, the arts. It's
unbelievable. There's this one hillbilly, Jed Sanders, that you have just
got to meet. He's the one that got them all started. He's the founder of
Spock Mountain Research Labs."
"Spock Mountain Research Labs?" The name sounded ludicrous.
"Yes. Spock Mountain Research Labs. Spock Mountain is where this particular
clan of hillbillies lives. At least that's what they call it. The mountain's
got a different name if you check a map. More government secrecy - the DOD
changed the name on official maps to make it harder to find."
"OK," I said, "So they've got an Internet connection. Big deal. I've got an
Internet connection and I'm not a great scientist. I just write about great
scientists." I guess I sounded bitter. Maybe if my parents had been able to
afford to send me to a top-flight college I could have been a great
scientist. Instead, I went to UC Berkeley. I had talent, but not training.
"You still don't get it," Albert replied with a grinning, smarter-than-thou
sneer, "The DOD left behind all of their old equipment. The lab didn't even
have enough money left in their budget to haul the equipment away and store
it. The hillbillies have all of that cutting-edge equipment at their
disposal. Imagine what you could have done back when you were a teenager if
you had all of the information on the net at your disposal, along with your
very own cyclotron, tunneling electron microscopes, machine shops, and
supercomputers."
"Geez." The possibilities started to sink in. "I'd be out doing science
rather than just writing about it." I replied.
"Exactly." Albert said, smugly.
"So what have these hillbillies discovered that's so earth-shattering?" I
asked.
"How much do you know about anti-gravity?" was Albert's reply.
The next day we were supposed to meet our contact, Ed Sanders. He was going
to take us to the lab to meet his half-brother (on his sister's side) Jed
Sanders. We were supposed to meet him at Jim's Pool Hall and Bait Shop,
right at the corner where the map showed the dashed-line gray road intersect
with the dotted-line gray road.
About half-past noon an old battered Ford pickup truck pulled up to the bait
shop.
"That's Ed," said Albert. "Or maybe Ted or Fred. These people are so inbred
it's difficult to tell them apart unless they've got a real obvious genetic
deformity."
Ed climbed out of the truck. I couldn't help but notice that he was also
carrying a shotgun and a couple of canvas bags.
I said hello to Ed/Ted/Fred. He looked me over and spit on the ground. "Put
these on and get in the back of the truck." He handed us a couple of old
gunny sacks.
"Why?" I asked.
Ed spit again. "Security," was all he said. He raised the shotgun up and
then sharply down, loading a round in the chamber with a sickening
clack-clack sound that was all too familiar. Familiar from television that
is, most of my interviews do not go like this.
I guess watching the DOD bring people in and out of the labs for years had
taught the hillbillies a little paranoia and gave them a few lessons in
security. Albert and I climbed in the back of the pickup and put the sacks
over our heads.
After a bouncing, rambling, jolting, nauseating, three-hour ride we stopped.
"You can take off the bags now," Ed said.
I removed the bag from my head and took in the view. We were high up on a
mountainside. Looking down I could see the valley floor far below. Looking
up I couldn't see the top of the mountain because there were too many trees
in the way. Just in front of us was a break in the trees that led to a small
gorge carved into the mountain. The lab complex was built into the sides of
the gorge. Lined up in front were people, obviously related, wearing old,
worn-out clothes and smoking corn cob pipes. Whatever they were smoking
smelled like hashish. I could see a clothesline with the day's washing
hanging out to dry. I could also see smoke rising in several places from
several small campfires and one honest-to-god moonshine still.
I imagined that with all of the trees around that from the air you probably
couldn't see any buildings or people at all. Without an expert guide to
bring someone in or out, no one would ever find Spock Mountain Research
Labs.
"Greetings Human!" Came a booming, yet timid voice. "Welcome to Spock
Mountain Research Labs! You must be Baron Earl."
That was my first meeting with Jed Sanders, hillbilly genius. Or as he later
became known, the first of the cyberbillies.
First Jed gave Albert and I our own corn cob pipes to smoke and a jug of
'shine to swig. "Hos-PEE-tal-I-tee." Jed said, so I lit up my pipe and took
a swig from the jug. I'd never had 'shine before, and was expecting pure
ethanol. Instead I got a mouth full of what tasted suspiciously like
Guinness. So much like Guinness in fact that I took a few more swigs.
Jed started introducing us to his family. "This is Aunt Linda, and Aunt
Mary, Cousin Billy Bob, Cousin Billy Ray Bob, and Cousin Billy Ray Ray Bob
Bob Ray. That woman over there is my Aunt Carla, who's also my sister and a
cousin. That girl over there is Betty Mae, my half-sister by my brother Ed.
Uncle Joe is Linda's son by Uncle Fred, but he's also her second husband.
When they got divorced she married his grandfather on his brother's side, so
he's actually his own grandson." Jed turned his back for a moment and Betty
Mae flashed her tits at me. Jed continued, "These three fellas here are my
brother Jed, and my other brother Jed, and my other brother Jed." I looked
at him quizzically. "When Ma wants one of us in particular she just uses our
last names," he said, answering my unstated question.
After the introductions were over and after a few more hits off my corn cob
pipe, I asked the question that had been nagging at the back of my brain for
the past 24 hours. "Albert tells me that you've made some amazing
breakthroughs in anti-gravity research. What's the story?" I asked.
Jed shot a glance at Albert. "Well," he said, "I asked Albert to contact
someone he could trust. Someone who could tell our story without giving away
too many of our secrets. You've got to realize just how valuable
anti-gravity technology could be. It's like when that guy, what's-his-name,
discovered electricity. This is like the discovery of electricity all over
again. I don't want our research to be stolen. I want the profits from this
technology to come back to the Ozarks. I want to get Aunt Mary an electric
washer, and Ma really wants a shiny new pink refrigerator, and Ed's pickup
won't last forever. Me, I just want some real Guinness beer, instead of
having to drink 'shine all the time."
It was a dream I could understand. Jed's vision of a better tomorrow for
himself and his family. Jed Sanders was not only the world's first
cyberbilly, he was a generous and loving family man as well.
"So show me what you've got." I said.
"Well, I've been readin' up on gravity research and the like on the
Internet. Now most of them approaches use new-fangled superconductors
dipped in liquid nitrogen. Well, we didn't have any fancy
superconductors here, but we do have liquid nitrogen. Big vats of the
stuff down in the basement. Don't know what the government was doin'
with it but it got me thinkin'. We don't have superconductors, but we
do have lots and lots of varmits."
"Varmits?" I asked.
"Varmits." Jed said seriously. "Possums and squirrels and jackrabbits
and mice and raccoons and such. I figured, what would happen if you
dropped a possum into a vat of liquid nitrogen? I asked everybody
around, and nobody knew, so I said 'Well, we'll just have to try it
then and see.' That's what scientists do. They try things and see what
happens."
"Well, the first varmit I managed to catch was a squirrel. I dropped
him in the vat of liquid nitrogen, pulled him back out, and measured
his resistance. I got the figures right here and, well, let's just say
that squirrels don't make good superconductors."
"Next I tried a jackrabbit, then a mouse, and finally a raccoon. No
luck at all. Every one of them critters still had some resistance left
in 'em even after they was super-cooled. Then I got lucky. I caught a
possum. I dropped him in the vat and quick-froze him in no time
flat. Pulled him out and hooked him up to the ohmmeter. Dammed if the
readout didn't just drop right down to
zero-point-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero!"
"And the frozen possum made anti-gravity happen?" I asked, incredulously.
"What are ya, stupid?" Jed scowled. "Ain't no way a frozen possum all
by itself it going to make anti-gravity happen. You got to spin that
possum, real fast like, and spin it inside a pulsating electromagnetic
field. You match the pulses to the speed of the spin, tune it in, and
the possum'll block gravity, sure as rain on a July Sunday."
And then I saw it, Jed's brother Ed came driving out in an old
Studebaker. Or rather came floating out I should say. Where each of
the Studebaker's wheels used to be was a super-cooled frozen possum
spinning so fast you could hardly tell its tail from its
head. Surrounding the possums were electromagnetic coils. The coils
were hooked up to the speakers of an old 8-track tape player blasting
Credence Clearwater Revival. By speeding up or slowing down the tape
the car would rise in the air or settle back to earth.
"Amazing," said Albert.
"This is truly a historic moment," I gasped. "This is history
happening, right here and now. I can't believe I've been lucky enough
to witness this." I turned to Jed. "You bet I'll tell your story," I
said. "I'll tell the whole world. I'll tell them that high up in the
Ozarks, a new breed of man is appearing, the cyberbilly. I'll tell
them about what you've accomplished here today. The whole world will
know the name Jed Sanders and about your amazing anti-gravity
possums. Everyone will know about Spock Mountain Research Labs, and
they will speak the name with awe and wonder in their voices."
"And the Guinness?" asked Jed.
"There will be imported Guinness beer on Spock Mountain," I replied,
"Of that you can be sure."
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