FASTER THAN LIGHT TRAVEL DISCOVERED
"We were actually studying Temporal Spatial Disorder, or TSD, which is a fancy way of describing ditzy blonds who have no concept of space or time," explained Dr. Lee Oleander, with the GDU Physiques Department. "And we were following one of our test subjects when she vanished into thin air." The puzzled GDU research team relocated their quarry, and put a tracking device on her car. "The next day we noticed that her car disappeared from her garage and instantly reappeared at a K Mart about 12 miles away," Oleander said. "There was absolutely no way this could happen according to normal science, but every Thursday, she'd get in her car, and instantly pop up at the K Mart with absolutely no time passing," Oleander added. The GDU research team finally interviewed their mysterious subject. "Actually, she called the police and had us arrested for stalking her," Oleander noted. " Once we got out of jail on bond, and explained to her that our following her around was part of a serious scientific study, she finally cooperated. Turns out she would get in her car, think about going to the K Mart to be in time for a sale, and poof, she was there. She had no idea how much time had passed or how far she'd gone. She was utterly oblivious to the Einstienian universe." With their test subject cooperating with them, the GDU researchers began experimenting with how far "Jane" could instantly transport herself. "We showed Jane an ad for a really terrific sale at a Foley's in Houston, and showed her a picture of the parking lot. She closed her eyes, and she was gone. About an hour later she popped back into Tucson, with three new dresses from Houston," Oleander explained. While Jane didn't understand how she was doing what she was doing, she managed to accumulate quite a wardrobe at GDU's expense as they sent her to New York, Tokyo, and Paris. "The real problem was we couldn't test Jane's ability to travel instantly anywhere she could visualize, to see if she really was going faster than light, without some kind of space craft. So we called up NASA to see if we could borrow one of theirs," Oleander went on. "They were not amused." Jane and the GDU research team did the next best thing. "It turns out Jane's ability to travel not only included her car, it included anyone in it. So we just flitted over to Washington, went to the Aerospace Museum, put her inside the Gemini capsule, and told her to visualize floating in space around Fornax. The Smithsonian people got real upset when their space capsule vanished, and were in the process of arresting us for grand theft, when she returned. They kicked us out, and wouldn't believe that an airhead blond and a couple of goofy-looking scientists had just proven humans could travel faster than light to another star." Jane took pictures with her instamatic camera of an earth-like planet orbiting Fornax. The GDU researchers have staked out several K Mart parking lots and discovered there are a surpising number of what they are calling "Faster Than Light Ladies" "It seems there is a class of human that is viewed as incredibly unaware of their surroundings, and who have extremely bad reputations for getting lost and always being late," Oleander explained. "But, no one notices when these people show up too early." While the Faster Than Light Ladies are mostly blond, there is no absolute preference for females or blonds for the ability to ignore space and time. "We're having a hard time convincing anyone we've really discovered faster than light travel," wailed Oleander. "We should be on the cover of Time Magazine and getting the Nobel Prize for this, instead, we're in the Frumious Bandersnatch." Jane, and several other Faster Than Light Ladies she has met through the GDU Intersteller Travel Research Program, are trying to visit every Nordstrom's Department Store on the Pacific Coast during their annual One Day Sale. MORE AS THIS STORY DEVELOPS. Copyright 1997 by Hugh Holub. All Rights Reserved. |
