The Feminist Queendom Charlie’s War 13 © Copyright Beverly Taff

List of Characters.
Charlie Sage Maths and electronics genius.
Shirley Sage Charlies elderly mother
Chloe Charlie’s one time early school friend.
Josephine Flint Surgeon and associate of Chloe’s.
Mrs Jane Anston Director of Anston Aerospace.
Ronnie Garage mechanic at top of lane
Pauline Garage owner, Ronnie’s sister.
Briony Pauline’s teenaged daughter.
Billy Pauline’s middle son.
Abigail (Abby) Pauline’s youngest daughter.
‘Poppy’ Charlie’s little micro-runabout.
‘Doris’ The armoured mobile home.
‘Lady’ Chloe’s Sports Car.
Colonel Wilson Vindictive misanthropist doctor.

Chapter 13

When Jane Anston, the owner and managing director of Anston Aerospace, led the panel of government inspectors and Anston executives down to the repair and renovation workshops, she was literally taking them down to the veritable nadir of the company’s functionality both literally and metaphorically.

Even though the women were dressed in protective overalls, safety shoe’s, safety hats and ear protectors, Jane could see that the bulk of the women were uncomfortable with the noise and confinement that was worlds apart from their familiar working environs.

Jane smiled inwardly as she watched some of them almost recoil in fear when the huge automatic door swung open and the women were assaulted by a wave of noise associated with the many repair and restitution processes taking place through the whole length of the workshop.

The workshop was necessarily well lit however and she spotted Charlie gathered with a group of his workmates sharing some amusing anecdote. They did not of course hear the executive women approach because of the noise and it was some moments before the men became aware. However, by the time the group had arrived outside Charlie’s cabinised work station, the men had simply melted away with a skill born of long years of necessary invisibility.

Charlie met the delegation and promptly invited them into his unofficial sanctum. Twelve women squeezed into a dirty, greasy workshop is not conducive to their comfort and Charlie felt a secretive visceral sense of satisfaction to note their obvious discomfort. The two delegated chaperones placed the artefact on a clean plastic tray to protect it from the clutter and detritus of Charlie’s many investigations then they shrank back as though the bench was somehow infectious.

“We’re going to have to knock up a jig the hold it securely first.” Charlie observed as he motioned to a pair of men standing nearby. After a few brief instructions, the men had relocated the device to a contraption that resembled an inebriated octopus where they promptly commenced arranging the clamps to secure the device to the bed of the turn-table. Once it was totally secured Charlie gave it a gentle flick with his finger and the assembly span freely. Then he clamped the brakes tight and brought a powerful lens to focus.

As the women watched, he produced a series of instruments from his work-locker and took a series of readings while the device was de-activated.

“What are those?” Once of the chaperones asked.

“Measuring instruments miss.”

“And what do they do?”

“They detect environmental anomalies in different fields.”

“What sort of fields?”

“Magnetism, static electricity, temperature, air-pressure, radioactivity, sound, light, whatever. You name it and somehow or another, these little beauties will give me handle on it or at least, the basis for further examination.”

“Can they detect gravity?”

“Eventually yes. Look are you going to allow me to check this thing or not. There’s going to be a hell of a lot of maths to get through.”

“This I’ve got to see,” the nosey chaperone scoffed.

“Well then shut up and watch, then you might learn something, - as might I.” Charlie added as he zeroed the instruments.

“Did you just hear that?” The chaperone almost shrieked.

“Yes!” Several of the Anston executives chorused before suggesting to the chaperone that she do exactly that, namely ‘shut up’!

“He’s brighter than any of you lot!” One of the Anston girls continued, “believe us we’ve seen him at work, so if you don’t want to learn, we sure as hell do!”

The chaperone fell silent as Charlie silently reflected that he might actually be getting through to some of his Anston work colleagues even though he might never associate with them on any social level.

By now several of Charlie’s work-mates had switched off whatever machinery they had been operating and gradually gravitated to the investigation. Jane Anston deliberately ignored it for she had long ago learned that in her scientific and engineering experiences, raw intelligence and imagination often counted more than technical education. Her repair and restitution team had long ago proven that to her and she valued her men as few other women would or could.

The workshop fell silent as the tests began.
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Firstly, Charlie set up several sensors in close proximity to the device then he activated a low current and moved cautiously around the bench to gather readings. One of the two chaperones was required to progressively increase the voltages and amperages in stages while Charlie continued taking readings and measuring the extent of each increased levitation.

By slow painstaking increments Charlie began to recognise a pattern that gave him a tangible insight into the most likely route that the Asiatic scientists had employed to effect a tangible gravitational resistance.

Eventually, after Charlie had run the readings backwards through a series different equations he ‘reverse-derived’ the most likely technique they had employed. The next step was to study the previous oscilloscopic magnatrometer images and try to discern which were the most likely components from the fuzzy images.

The executive researcher now had a chance to scan the device and she manoeuvred projector precisely as Charlie requested. From a couple of angles they managed to get some less fuzzy images because there was possibly less Osmium or even no Osmium at all in that small section that gave them a rare chance to discern a tiny sector of the interior. Charlie tried to extrapolate some images or more correctly, - his ideas of some likely images of some components he suspected might be inside.

As he and the lady researched worked their way patiently around the device the lady suddenly squeaked excitedly.

“Does that look like some sort of fine thread?”

Charlie squinted thoughtfully then nodded.

“D’ you know, I think you may be right. That could be where the two halves separate.”

Jane Anson took a close look and felt the young researcher and Charlie we right. It definitely looked like a threaded edge to the circumferential disk.

“So how to separate it, I wonder?” Charlie mused.

“If we can apply opposite torques to each side of the disk, we might achieve something.” The excited young researcher suggested.

“Is it worth heating one side of the disk to get differential expansions to loosen it.” Jane Anston offered.

“Well, I can’t think of an alternative method and I can’t identify anything that looks like a booby-trap.” Charlie hazarded.

“In for penny, in for pound!” Jane Anston grinned.

“Okay then,” Charlie agreed. “Let’s make sure the thing is completely de-activated. We don’t want any short circuits and sparks or whatever.”

The device was transferred to another bench with a soft-jawed vice and, ever so slowly, two magnetic pads were attached magnetically to the opposite flats of the ring. The electro magnetic current was turned on and soon, they had an unbreakable grip on either side of the flat circumferential ring without compressing the two halves. Once he was satisfied he had sufficient tenacity running through the magnetic pads, Charlie took a heavy ball-pein hammer and gave one of the magnets a gentle tap.

He smiled inwardly as he noticed the donut of watchers around him expand significantly.

“You needn’t worry ladies. If this was booby-trapped, I think we’d have been blown to kingdom-come by now.”

Despite his assurances, the donut did not shrink; indeed it actually expanded as he gave the magnet a second sharper tap.

“I think it moved then,” Charlie remarked as he took out a fine-tip marker pen and marked the disc.

A third tap definitely moved the discs and Charlie nodded with satisfaction as he inspected the displaced line.

“Yep, that’s certainly moved,” he confirmed as a series of gentle taps loosened the discs enough to use his fingers until the device could finally be separated.

However, instead of just separating them, Charlie carefully slid some plastic feeler gauges between the discs until he felt some resistive force like two like-poled magnets. He turned to the young researcher.

“There feel that. You’ll notice a resistance similar to that when two like poles of a magnet are pushed together, but as you can see, this feeler gauge is plastic. That proves the force is not magnetism for that only affects iron.”

The lady did as Charlie instructed and her eyes widened as she felt the force. She then turned to Charlie.

“How did you know what to expect, how did you know to use plastic?”

“I’ve had thoughts about this before but never had the facilities to do any experiments because I’m a man. If you take it apart now, you’ll find four coils of gold wire and several things that resemble capacitors but they store negative gravity. I’d like to check one of the capacitors just to see how the Asians have done it. If they’ve done it the way I think they might have done it, there could be a way to make this thing twice as effective.”

At this juncture, Jane Aston elbowed her way through the donut and challenged Charlie.

“Are you trying to say, you’ve understood about gravity since you came here?”

“No. I said I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve never actually been able to test my ideas because of the Feminista rules. -Your loss, not mine.”

Several female jaws, including Jane Anston’s, sagged at Charlie’s declaration and it was long seconds before anybody found their voice. Charlie filled those seconds by finally separating the device’s halves to confirm his expectations. He picked one of the spherical capacitors and eased it out of its moulding to reveal a connecting wire that seemingly fed the sphere.

“To determine exactly what happens inside this sphere ladies, you’ll have to determine exactly what gravity is. This object is a spherical capacitor that stores an antigravity charge that acts similarly to a magnet field around a magnet. This particular one converts large amounts of electricity into anti-gravity. I can show you how it does this by reverse-engineering the whole device.”

The stunned silence continued as Charlie finally completed disassembling the device before laying the separated components out for inspection. Then to add insult to injury, he went around the donut asking each woman what a particular item did. There were no answers. Then his most injurious act was to describe and explain the nature of each piece. This was the worst form of humiliation any of the women had ever experienced for it exposed their ignorance and intellectual limitations.

When he had finished, Charlie stepped outside his work-space and made himself a cup of tea from the workshop dispenser. The women grimaced as they watched him pour the tea into a heavily tea-stained mug then add milk and sugar to suit from a carton and packet that lent no finesse of style. With mug in hand he returned to the chattering circle and suggested.

I think you had better get yourselves some tea and biscuits, you’ve got a long lesson ahead of you.

Jane Anston stared balefully at her shop-floor supervisor and quickly ushered the women to their own operational canteen. Only the two chaperones remained with a promise that a tray of tea pot and makings would be delivered to Charlie’s workstation for them to drink without losing sight of the disassembled device.

To avoid embarrassment, Charlie took out a thick notebook and started taking measurements and readings of each of the separate parts then he started running the figures through a set of equations denoted by his own hieroglyphics that made no sense at all to the two chaperones who craned their necks to try and read then make sense of his notes. Charlie simply pushed his notebook across his bench and offered the greasy, well-thumbed pages for their inspection.

“They’ll not make much sense to you ladies. Those symbols are my own derivatives; you could look at them all day and be no wiser.”

The younger, and very pretty chaperone bit her lip thoughtfully before asking.

“Is this the maths you used to understand gravity?”

“Yes.” Charlie replied.

“I was reckoned to be damned good at maths at university, could you show me what these signs and symbols mean?”

“Sorry Ma-am, that would make me a pedagogue and that would be breaking the law.”

“Oh that’s ridiculous, if your not being paid they cannot charge you with professionalism.”

“If I’m not being paid, I’d be a victim of slavery. I refuse to be a slave.”

“You can be paid in kind, you know – there are other ways,” She smiled invitingly.

Charlie was by now highly attuned to such feminine wiles and he recoiled backwards in his chair.

“No, no, NO! I’m happily married and I’m monogamous!”

She stopped short, astounded by his declaration.

“Married?!”

“Yes,” Charlie replied defensively, “and there’s cameras all around the workshop. There are two focused on my work-station right now!”

“Good god! Don’t they trust you?”

“It’s to protect me! -From just such things as this! In fact I asked for them to be installed and the other men were keen for them as well. It protects us from any accusations, – and uninvited approaches as well; - just like yours.”

“But what woman would want to come slumming for sex down here?”

“You’d be surprised. The men down here are all intelligent or they wouldn’t be here. Women are always demanding our sperm. Now I’m married and my wife’s matrimonial rights protect me. So please; no more approaches. I am not a sex slave and my sperm is not available for public dispensation.”

She stared silently, trying to make sense of a sperm donor who was quite obviously a genius and yet had somehow managed to circumvent the breeding rules. Sperm such as his was desperately needed by the sperm banks now that the new genetic awareness was trickling down from the halls of academia. She shook her head partly in anger and partly in frustration then took to browsing through Charlie’s notebook as a way of displacing her embarrassment.
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