Dale Delisman was bored and a little annoyed. Jim had called him up and told him to come over right away. It had seemed to be important and so Dale had hurried over, only to find Jim in his `radio shack' bending over a circuit board.
Jim Harrental's radio shack was now housed in what had been a backyard garage until it was walled up by the former owners of the backwoods Florida house. Both Jim and his father had used the building for their Ham Radio equipment, but for the last two or three years, Jim had had the building mostly to himself.
For the last several months, Jim had been assembling a bizarre collection of circuitry which now took up two complete table tops and part of a third. Dale knew that all of the circuitry present was interconnected somehow, he had in fact helped Jim assemble some of it, but he had no idea what it was all for. He had chided Jim several times for his use of several vacuum tubes instead of integrated circuits or transistors, and Jim had answered that it was impractical to get the kind of power he wanted from transistors without burning them out. So Dale knew that whatever this monstrosity was, it required a lot of power.
Jim and Dale had been working on electronic projects together since they were both old enough to dissect a flashlight. Jim was now nearly seventeen. Not the typical teenager, he seemed to only be interested in electronics and camping. Dale shared his interest in camping, and enjoyed working on practical electronic designs, but was not very enthusiastic about some of Jim's more obscure projects. He assumed that Jim had called him this time to do some more work on this latest folly. This was annoying because he had been in the middle of a good book when Jim called.
"So what's the big emergency?" asked Dale, announcing his presence.
Jim looked up, a shock of his uncombed black hair falling in front of his eyes. "What emergency? I just said to come over. I wanted you to be the first to see this."
"You mean I'm actually going to find out what this thing does? A real live demonstration?" Dale asked, arms crossed, not bothering tom ask his boredom. At 15, Dale was not strong on subtlety.
"I've told you what I'm trying to do," Jim replied.
"Sure, trying to reach an RF saturation point in free space -whatever that means."
"It means. ."
"Yeah, you've told me what it means, but WHY you're doing it is what can't figure. What use is it?
"It really doesn't matter much now. I've found something really wild. And yes, you get a real live demonstration." He walked to parabolic-shaped wooden arch the exterior surface of which was covered with coils of wire, tied a piece of thread to a nail he had had in his pocket, and then tied the thread to the top of the arch. The nail swung like a pendulum in the center of the arch while Jim walked over to control panel on the least crowded of the three tables.
The control panel was rather crude in construction and reflected Jim’s thriftiness in using what was available, as well as his lack of regard for appearances. It consisted of an automobile ammeter, doorbell button, and an automobile ignition key switch. Jim turned the key to the start position until the meter dropped from a maximum reading to zero, then released it. "Watch the nail," he said. He then pushed the button.
The nail flashed brightly for an instant, then disappeared.
"So you can vaporize nails," Dale said, unimpressed.
"Not so fast," Jim replied patiently, "Watch this."
He repeated the procedure with nothing in the arch this time. "I thought it was vaporized too at first, but watch." He pushed the button again.
There was a ringing sound of metal hitting the floor.
Jim walked to the arch and picked up the nail, with the thread still attached, and handed it to Dale.
"Notice the thread is not burned around the nail," Jim said, "It would be if the nail was hot enough to vaporize."
Dale stared at the nail for some time. "Why is the string broken, though?"
"The transport area doesn't go quite all the way to the top of the arch, I guess. The string stuck out of it," Jim replied.
"Have you tried anything else?" Dale asked, suddenly very interested.
Jim opened a cabinet on the wall above his control panel and poduced a mouse in a small cage. "I caught him in the kitchen. My mom doesn’t know I'm keeping him. He's already made two trips. I want to try him for endurance now."
He hung the cage in the arch, and while explaining to Dale how to operate the device, which he had christened `Sherman' for some obscure reason, he repeated the earlier procedure with the mouse this time. He waited a full minute before he told Dale to bring the mouse back. When the cage reappeared, Jim caught it to keep it from hitting the floor.
"It's still alive," he said, pleased.
"Ok, I'm impressed," Dale said.
Jim began tying a string to the top of the arch, then pulled a small stool over to it. (Jim was a good 1.8 meters tall so he hardly needed a stool to stand on, but Dale refrained from asking about it. He did see the small wire trailing from the stool, so he assumed it was tied into the machine.)
"Charge up Sherman and toss me that candle over there," Jim said,” That candle holder too."
"What are these for?" Dale asked as he threw them to Jim.
"Just to see if the candle will stay lit," Jim answered, shrugging in the lopsided way that Dale had learned meant that he was lying about something. Jim reached up and tied the candle and holder to the string. He then struck a match and stood on the stool.
Jim, the candle and holder, and the stool flashed brilliantly for an instant and disappeared. Simultaneously, a component on one of the circuit boards exploded.