She was a poor woman with great intelligence. Tell how she emerges from poverty into a great fortune.
Approx 5,484 words
Ourdoll and FERD
©2003 by W. E. Lopez
Ardy lay on the lounge chair and let the golden rays of
the sun caress her slender body. It was
hardly after seven in the morning, yet the day was already very warm, but she
was quite refreshed by eight hours of solid sleep after returning from
Before Ourdoll was nine,
her school school-mates had shortened her name to Ardy. A quick student, Ardy’s
grades were mostly A’s and B’s, but she had few close friends. She was embarrassed wearing the clothes her
mom picked up at the second hand store, she was embarrassed by the disheveled
apartment she shared with her mom, and she was terrified one of her school
chums might drop by and see her mom zoned out, or worse—entertaining yet
another ‘uncle.’
By the time she entered high-school, alone and aloof,
Ardy cracked the books even harder, consistently
making the honor roll even though she signed up for the most difficult college
prep courses. At fifteen, she began
flipping burgers after school and she was finally able to afford her own
clothes, occasional trips to the beauty parlor, and she began experimenting
with cosmetics. The tutoring she’d had
using makeup in her drama class came in very handy.
Ardy avoided boys, even at a time when her teen-aged body
yearned for excitement and the pleasures of male companionship. Many thought she was gay because she refused
all invitations for a movie or dinner, but Ardy would
not be trapped by a man who only wanted to use her, as her mother had
been. At eighteen, Ardy
got out of the burger business and took a job as a dancer.
During her first year as a dancer, she received her
high-school diploma and two minor scholarships to USC. Before she started college, she liked the
easy work at The Stray Kitten, but
when classes began she hated the time between sets when she would have liked to
be studying, but was instead waiting tables.
Her major was economics with a strong minor in business administration.
“Ardy,” Marsha Mellow told
her, “lighten up! Spend more time with
the customers and you’ll latch onto a rich junior executive with a bright
future.”
“Right, Marsha…” Ardy
thought the stage name was very ridiculous, “… and the first time he goes on a
business trip, he’ll take up with another dancer. Sorry, babe, when I get my degree I’m gonna open my own business and I’ll succeed on my brains,
not my tits and the generosity of dirty old men.”
At twenty-one; Ardy
maintained a 3.7 GPA, but she quit the non-alcoholic bar and became a
professional stripper. Between numbers,
she wasn’t required to serve drinks and could spend more time with her studies. The following year she had a solid 4.0 GPA.
Ardy squeezed in summer courses for extra credit and
earned her master’s degree at twenty-four.
Throughout her career, she had put away a substantial savings and was
able to open her own marketing business with a capital investment of $60,000
dollars. Her first six months were
disappointing and Ardy thought she might have to go
back to stripping to raise additional capital.
Then she met Steve Wilson.
Although she’d seen him on campus where he taught molecular physics, Ardy had not had occasion to make his acquaintance.
When Steve entered her office and introduced himself,
she liked the way he set in the chair in front of her desk, legs crossed and
casual, staring at her eyes and hair and not at her boobs.
“One of my students told me you could sell aqua-lungs
to dolphins, Miss Stephens. Sounds like
it would be kind of hard to get them to pay up, wouldn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that, Prof. Wilson. There are credit card companies who will
issue a card to anyone. I’d just get the
dolphin’s card number and expiration date, then let the credit card company
worry about collecting.”
Steve chuckled and she liked his warm sense of humor. “Hah!
That would certainly work… perhaps you are the person I need. What do you charge?”
“That would depend upon the extent of the marketing
campaign you want, Prof…”
“Just Steve, if that’s alright with you.”
“…Steve, thank-you, please call me Ardy.” She
continued. “Color brochures and direct
mailing can be the least expensive, but saturation television advertising can
bring quicker results. Of course, I’d
have to have an idea of what you’ve got to sell before I could really outline a
program for you.”
“That sounds reasonable. Are you free this weekend?”
“The whole weekend?” she asked, as she thumbed
through her day planner. She had nothing
scheduled, of course, but if this was just an attempt by him to get her away
from the weekend, she wanted to be able to come up with an excuse.
“Not necessarily, I think a few hours would be
sufficient. I’ll have to introduce you
to FERD and give you a demonstration.
Then you should be quite able to come up with a marketing strategy.”
“Ferd,” she asked?
“Field Effect Research Device,” Steve said. “It’s a test bed I constructed to calibrate
the controls. I’m sure you won’t be
disappointed.”
Ardy decided to take a chance. He sounded sincere enough, but Ted Bundy had probably
been sincere too!
“Okay, Steve, I’ll pencil you in for Saturday
then? What’s the address?”
“Sixty-four thousand, Highway 247, in
“Kind of far out in the desert, isn’t it?”
“It’s quiet. I
have a small airfield and a three bedroom home I inherited. There’s a pool also, so bring a suit if you
like. Even in August the weather is quite warm.”
Ardy decided to throw caution to the wind and keep the
rendezvous in the desert. “Fine, Steve…
the drive should take me about three hours, so I’ll meet you about ten in the
morning?”
“Perfect,” he said.
He stood and shook her hand.
“After the demonstration, I’ll treat you to lunch and you can head back
here any time you like.”
Ardy smiled, already she wondered
what this FERD business could be about.
* * *
On Saturday morning, dressed in khaki shorts, a print
blouse and hiking boots, Ardy took a small bag and
headed her Volkswagen toward the high desert.
The drive took her just ten minutes over three hours before she spotted
the mailbox on the right side of the road.
As she exited the little blue car, Steve Wilson
appeared on the front porch and walked out to meet her. “Right on time,” he said. “Let me take you inside, my mom always told
me the first thing you should do for a guest is show them the powder room.”
“I would greatly appreciate that, Steve. Foolishly, I ordered a giant slurpee while I was in Victorville, but the day has been so
hot I really needed it.”
He showed her the living room, modestly furnished
with heavy furniture, rustic carved wood covered with rawhide and coarse,
south-western blankets.
“Your home is lovely, Steve. Did you do the decorating yourself?”
“Me? Hardly…,
I told the decorator where I wanted the book case and left him to do the
work. He seemed to understand what I
wanted and did a wonderful job without costing me a fortune.” He pointed, “Straight down the hall, first
door on your left. Can I get you a soda,
tea, a drink?”
“Not just yet, thank you, perhaps after you’ve
introduced me to FERD. He doesn’t drink,
does he?”
“Oh, yes! By the gallon!” Steve
chuckled. “You’ll see.” She returned shortly and Steve took her
outside.
As they went through the dining area and out the rear
door, Ardy dropped her bag on the kitchen
counter. Outside, she was greeted by a
shimmering blue pool made more inviting by the August heat. She regretted not having brought her swimsuit
as he had suggested, certain that she was not ready
for that sort of relationship. Without a
pause, Steve led her past the pool to a small building, actually a two-car
garage about thirty yards away.
They entered by a side door and he flipped a switch which
illuminated several overhead fluorescents.
Ardy saw a silver gray Datsun,
older than her Volkswagen. On the far
side of the Datsun, she saw a mini-van. Steve obviously used the garage as a work
shop. Work benches lined three walls
with peg-boards above for wrenches, hammers, and screwdrivers. Toward the rear of the building she saw unfamiliar
electronic equipment and could only guess their purpose. As Steve led her to the mini-van, she found
she had been mistaken. It was not a car
at all, where she expected to see tires, the vehicle stood on simple struts
with supporting pads the size and shape of large dinner plates. At the front and rear, there was a protuberance
like a high-voltage insulator with a shiny gold grapefruit at the far end.
“Miss Stephens,” Steve said, “allow me to introduce
FERD.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. FERD,” Ardy said. “Just
what am I looking at, Steve?”
“A matter transmitter, I guess they would call it in
the science fiction movies, or perhaps a teleportation device. It will take you places, not quite instantly
but at the speed of light.”
Ardy smiled and hoped he didn’t see the puzzled look
behind her smile. Was this guy bonkers?
Steve led her to the passenger’s side and opened the
door for her. “Please be sure to fasten
your seat-belt, Ardy.
I don’t plan any violent maneuvers, but it’s always safest to buckle
yourself in.”
Ardy slipped into the seat, “You mean this thing can move? But it doesn’t have any wheels?”
“Trust me,” he said as he closed her door. He went ‘round the front and got in behind
the controls. He flipped a switch here
and there and the instrument panel began to glow with blue digits. She could read the labels beneath the glowing
numbers, WATER, DDPU, NAV, LIBRARY, ATM.
“You’re kidding me. This thing has a library and an ATM,” she asked?
“In a matter of speaking, it does. The library is digital, on a hard drive. Basically it contains information used by the
navigation computer. ATM is merely
shorthand for atmosphere.”
“And water and DDPU?”
“Water we made need for refrigeration. The DDPU is classified, but I guess I can
tell you a little about it.” While he
spoke, he fastened his own seat-belt and flipped another switch that made her
door emit a loud series of clicks. “Just
sealing us in, don’t want to lose pressure inside.”
“The DDPU is a ‘direct decay power unit.’ You know how a solar cell intercepts
sunlight, photon particles, and converts them to usable current? The DDPU does the same thing, except the
source is radioactive waste encapsulated in a semiconductor material over a
boron substrate.
The Alpha, Beta, and Gamma particles emitted by the source are converted
to electricity by the same material which insulates us from the radiation.”
“Are you sure it’s safe, Steve? I’m a young woman and I may want to have
children…someday…in the future, I mean.”
“You’ll receive a lower dose inside FERD than you
will inside a high flying jet-liner, Ardy. Aircraft are exposed to cosmic
radiation. It becomes more intense the
higher they fly. The environment I
designed this vehicle for is even more intense in radioactivity, so it’s
thoroughly shielded. Even what appears to be glass windows is a boron compound to block
most radiation.”
FERD was emitting a low hum now and Ardy was startled when the vehicle lifted itself about six
inches above the concrete floor. Steve
kept talking.
“I invented the DDPU about ten years ago as a safe
alternative to the nuclear reactors aboard Navy submarines, where stealth and
absolute quiet are necessary to the survival of the crew. Because the DDPU has no moving parts, like
the pumps and turbines in a reactor, it is perfect for Navy subs. It also has the advantage of using nuclear
waste as a fuel source, extracting every measurable bit of energy and making
the waste safe to dispose of.
Unfortunately, about that time the
Steve pushed slightly forward on a small joy stick
built into the arm rest on the right of his seat. The nose of FERD dipped ever so slightly then
it immediately leveled off again.
Four words, “CANNOT COMPLY, NO EXIT” flashed on the
small video screen directly in front of Steve.
He grinned sheepishly, “Make a note, Ardy,
some professors really are absent minded.
I forgot to open the garage door,” he pushed another button and the door
disappeared into the ceiling, “but FERD’s safety
routines in the NAV computer prevented my silly mistake.
Ardy’s stomach began to turn flip-flops, the kind you feel
when driving that funny stretch of highway on the road to Pearblossom
as your car speeds over the dips. Slowly
and silently the vehicle moved forward and out of the garage, then Steve pulled
back on the joy-stick and FERD pointed to the sky. When Ardy thought to
look behind her, she was amazed to see the coastline and the
“I can’t believe this, Steve! I don’t even feel any sense of motion.” She glanced at the control panel and saw a
digital readout displaying Mach 12.
“That’s impossible!” she cried.
“There isn’t an aircraft made that can go that fast, and even the space
shuttle needs special heat shields at that speed.”
“Oh, it’s true alright,” Steve said. "FERD does not feel atmospheric friction. We could travel at the speed of light and not
turn into a ball of fire.”
The atmosphere around them turned to deep indigo-blue
and Ardy could see the curvature of the Earth on the
horizon. “How high are we, Steve?”
“Just passing through 475,000 feet, Ardy, about ninety miles. Don’t worry, FERD’s computer will steer us clear of passing satellites
and such. The near orbits of Earth are
filled with debris, mostly junk, but also a lot of important satellites. Still, I never feel comfortable until I’m
beyond the geo-stationery satellites at 22,300 miles. We’ll be orbiting the moon in about six
minutes,” he said matter of factly.
“So soon? That’s amazing!” she said.
“Soon? Actually, I have to slow down so we can make
an orbit. We could shoot straight past
the moon in a matter of a few seconds, but we wouldn’t get to see much.”
“Umm, Steve… I think I’m getting sick…” she quickly
clasped a hand over her mouth. Steve let
go of the joy-stick for a second to open the console between the two front
seats and grab an air-sick kit for her.
He shook it briskly to open it and passed it to her.
“Use this, there’s absorbent cellulose inside to
prevent a sloshy mess.”
Ardy quickly held the bag over her face and lost the last
of her slurpee.
Her mouth tasted really foul by the time her stomach quit protesting and
she had folded the top of the bag and sealed it with a wire twist. Steve reached into the console again and pulled
out a packet of gum. “Try these. A friend of mine from NASA gave me a few
packs and I’ve used them on occasion.
Just chew two of them and your troubles are over. Besides, they taste like raspberries and are
very refreshing.”
Ardy did as she was told and found Steve had not been
kidding. Immediately she began to feel
better. By now the moon had grown to
fill the windshield (viewing port?) in front of them and Steve aimed a little
to the left. In moments they swung
around to the dark side of the moon and she couldn’t see a thing beneath her.
“How can you be sure we won’t crash into the surface
if you can’t see it, Steve? It must be
like flying an aircraft through clouds.”
“Radar altimeter, Ardy. I just told
FERD to maintain 50,000 feet, give or take a few thousand to keep it
smooth. Ten minutes later they were
blinded as the sun rose above the horizon, but the viewing port suddenly began
to turn dark just like those photo-gray sunglasses, only much quicker.
“Look! There’s
Oceanus Procellarum, and that’s Copernicus Crater and
beyond is Mare Serenitatis.” The Latin rolled pleasingly off her lips and
Steve was amazed.
“Did you also study astronomy at USC, Ardy?”
“No, but I’ve always been a sci-fi buff. I was reading Heinlein and Asimov practically
before I could walk! It’s beautiful,
more than I ever expected it could be.”
“Like the feller said, Ardy,
‘you ain’t seen nothing yet!’”
The left the orbit of the moon after only one pass,
but Ardy made Steve promise to bring her back
again. “I want to bring my camera and
take pictures, Steve. It’ll be the most
fantastic time of my life!”
Steve promised he would, but the moon was far behind
them by then. Thirty minutes later they
were high over the dull-orange surface of Mars, but Ardy
was not impressed. Not even when Steve
told her Mons Olympus was three times a tall as
“Oh, pooh, Steve. When you’ve
seen one hole in the ground you’ve seen them all, and who cares how high a mountain
is—provided you don’t fall off?”
Steve chuckled and they headed out for distant
Saturn. “Personally, I think Jupiter is
much more interesting, Ardy, but it’s on the opposite
side of the sun at present, and quite a ways off. It’ll take us about ninety minutes for the
trip to Saturn, and I think you’ll enjoy the view.”
Soon they were passing the Asteroid belt and Steve
flipped on the electric heaters. “Okay,
Steve, tell me how this James Bond car does these
tricks, and don’t tell me it’s magic.
“No, not magic, not even very complicated physics. I know you’ve had Physics 101, and you
understand that electricity moves along a conductor because electrons jump from
one atom to the next.”
“Yes, like those pendulums with four or five steel
balls some people keep on their desk.
You raise one and release it, and the energy is transmitted through all
of them until the last one jumps, over an over.”
“FERD works in a similar manner, Ardy. From the emitter behind us, that’s the
grapefruit like thing, to the collector in front of us. Every atom and molecule within the field
moves forward to occupy successive positions in space, but the motion is
incredibly fast, just like electricity along a wire.”
“But people and plastics are not good conductors,
Steve, so how do you make it work?”
“Naturally it can’t work in normal space, according
to the laws of physics we understand, but the field created between the emitter
and collector is an artificial space where different laws apply.”
“If you say so, Steve, physics was not my major.”
“I know, and that’s why I need someone like you. After the way I fouled up the sale of the
DDPU with the Navy, I need someone to market FERD. Do you think you can handle it?”
“Handle it?
Why I could sell snow-cones at the South Pole. FERD will practically sell himself!”
They continued past the asteroids and Steve explained
how the water supplied refrigeration, simply by letting it evaporate slowly
into the vacuum of space under very low pressure. The air supply was replenished from a tank of
compressed air constantly replacing used air which was also allowed to vent to
open space.
They orbited Saturn inside the famous rings and Ardy made appropriate ooh’s
and ahh’s as the angle of sunlight reflected from the
billions of dust particles provided a kaleidoscopic display. Too soon it was over and Steve navigated them
back to his ranch in the desert and parked FERD inside the garage again.
“Steve, answer me this… I understand practically
every cubic foot of air space over the
“It’s the n-dimensional
field, Ardy.
Radar can’t see us.”
Steve led her to the kitchen where he began grilling
steaks on the indoor range. While he
cooked, he answered the dozens of questions she asked. “Would it be difficult for me to operate
FERD, Steve?”
“No more difficult than driving a car, Ardy. The NAV
computer is programmed to keep you out of serious trouble. FERD simply will not let you do anything
which might not be safe, like trying to fly through the center of the
sun.” Ardy
gave a small shudder when she thought about that.
“Okay, I think I can handle this in just a few
months, providing you can teach me to operate FERD and let me borrow him for a
couple weeks while I demonstrate the capabilities in the right markets. I’ll want to take a few hours of video also,
just to show potential customers.”
“No problem, Ardy. I have no classes this semester, but I do
have another project I want to work on—a starship for interstellar
colonization, but I’ll need much more working capital than I could ever scrape
together at this time. If you can come
back during the week, I’ll spend a day or two with you and teach you the control
system, then you can shoot your pictures and take FERD on a grand tour of the
world.
After dinner, Ardy thanked
him for a wonderful day, gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek and drove back to
Steve almost blushed as he walked her to her car and found
himself happily looking forward to her next visit.
During the days which followed, Ardy
again showed what a quick learner she was.
When Steve was satisfied she would not crash FERD, he pulled a tiny
stamp-sized circuit board out of the center console and handed it to her.
“Think of this as the ignition key, Ardy. With this in
your purse or pocket, no one can operate FERD.”
“Wonderful, Steve. I was
wondering how I could lock him up. I
have an appointment tomorrow in
Steve shushed her.
“It sounds as if you have the next month planned out already. Take your time, I know I can’t advise you on
the job you have to do. Give me a call
or send an email so I won’t be too worried about you.”
Before Ardy left in FERD,
she gave Steve a kiss which kept his head buzzing for the next month and
longing for her return. He threw himself
into a rough design of his starship, knowing he would need a dozen specialty
engineers to create the sub-systems needed to provide a safe environment for
600 or more people as they traveled to nearby stars.
Where to go, he wondered? Alpha Centauri was just over four light-years
away, but it was a tri-nary system and unlikely to have habitable planets. He decided on Tau Ceti, only eleven light-years distant. If that proved unsuitable, there were a few
dozen possible systems within fifty light years. Steve knew even though fifty years would pass
on Earth while the starship traveled to another destination, Einstein predicted
the time experienced aboard the starship would be but a few months. Steve could work it out exactly with a slide rule, the problem did not require the number-crunching
abilities of a computer.
Ardy was absent for six weeks, and Steve became acutely
aware of how much he missed her. He
anxiously awaited hearing her voice when next she
called, and he began signing his emails to her with X’s and O’s. Steve was falling for her in a big way and it
seemed she reciprocated his feelings.
In late September Ardy
returned and parked FERD in the garage just after eight in the evening. Of course, he was anxious to hear the details
of her trip, but she reminded him of the time change between
* * *
“There you are!
I get up to an empty house, and I find you laying out here by the
pool. How long have you been up?”
Ardy smiled.
“You’re the late sleeper, I’ve been here nearly an hour and I’m done on
this side. Be a love and put some lotion
on me when I roll over.”
“Your wish is my command, Dear Heart. I come bearing gifts,” he said and set down a
steaming mug of coffee. “If you’re
rested now, tell me about your trip.”
She took a long swig and marveled at his ability to
always make a flavorful cup of coffee.
“Before we go into that, Steve, have we negotiated a price yet? I was thinking in the neighborhood of ten per
cent. Does that sound fair?”
“No complaints from me, Ardy. But I certainly hope your deal is worth more
than the eight million I got from the Navy, or your ten per cent won’t amount
to much.”
Ardy shifted her coffee to her left hand and held her
right hand out to him. “Shake, partner,
you’ve got a deal.” Steve did so,
agreeably. “How does fifteen billion a
year sound to you, Steve? For the next
fifteen years! Let’s see, my ten percent
should work out to twenty-two and a half billion dollars, before Uncle Sam gets
his claws into it.”
“Billion, Ardy? Oh, my God!
How did you do it?”
“Grab that lotion and begin earning your share,
Steve.” As he squirted a small amount
into his hand and rubbed his palms together to warm the lotion, Ardy began explaining.
“It was quite simple, Steve. FERD will be the biggest advancement ever
seen in the transportation and shipping industry. Air liners will become a thing of the past,
so naturally all the carriers, world wide, will want a piece of FERD; ditto for
the shipping industry. FERD can move
mountains of goods and produce around the world in no time, at almost no
cost. Besides, since his power source is
nuclear waste, the folks in
“Next comes the auto industry, FERD is so simple to
operate, any sixteen-year old can drive a FERD type car. Even if the vehicle costs fifty thousand to
begin with, the fact that you never have to buy gasoline will make that chump
change. Do you know how many automobiles
are manufactured all over the world each year?
You’d faint if I told you.
“The Arabs won’t be too happy without a market for
their oil, but what do we care about Arabs anyway? They won’t starve as some oil will always be
needed in the plastics industry, but they will no longer have us by the short
hairs.
“So we had a meeting in
“When all the dust settled and the smoke cleared, they
formed a conglomerate to pay you fifteen billion each year over the next
fifteen years. Are you happy now, hon?”
“Happy?” he asked.
“I’m stunned, beyond belief.
Unfortunately, I think we’re up against a major problem, and our reason
to celebrate has just gone up in a puff of smoke.”
“Problem? What problem, Steve? Since you promised me ten per cent, I don’t
want to see my hard earned bonus evaporate so quickly.”
“You forgot, Ardy, the DDPU
is classified and I can’t sell it. FERD
can’t work without a compact power source—we’re snookered, dear. We have one of the greatest inventions in
history, but the government won’t let us market it. I’m sorry, hon, you
did well, but it won’t work.”
Ardy looked thoughtful for a few seconds. “Hmm, if you really feel we’ll get nothing
out of this, Steve, why don’t you offer me twenty-five percent?”
“If you’ll marry me, Ardy,
you can have fifty per cent! But I have
to warn you, fifty per cent of nothing is still a big fat goose egg.”
“Okay,” Ardy said. “Let’s get FERD and hop over to Vegas before
you change your mind, if you’re serious.”
“Yes, I’m serious, Ardy,
but I don’t have more than a few million.
We’ll never have enough money to build a starship.”
“If I promise to love, honor, and obey, Steve, I will
expect you to promise to let me manage the checkbook and the family budget.”
“Why not?” he said.
“Ummm,” she purred, “just a
little lower below the shoulder, Steve.
Did I somehow give you the impression that we’re going into business to
manufacture and sell big FERD’s and little FERD’s? No, you’re
right, we can’t do that, but not for the reason you are thinking.
“This is so big, Steve, and so revolutionary, we
would immediately bankrupt every company involved with any aspect of
transportation, and even a lot around the edges. With no need for air liners, even the
caterers who prepare in-flight meals would go bust. I did not make any agreement to sell our
product, Steve, I agreed not to sell FERD for the next fifteen years, which
will allow the major industries to diversify and convert before they go
broke. All you have to do is get the
government to declassify the DDPU by the end of fifteen years, and I’m sure
they’ll agree since it is no longer a defense issue.”
“You sold the rights NOT to sell FERD for two hundred
and twenty five billion dollars?” Steve
sounded incredible. “Of course, it makes
perfect sense the way you explain it, Ardy. I’m certainly glad you’re on my side!”
“Thank you, professor. Flattery is always welcome. Now, can I ask you a simple question?”
“Yes, dear, I think I’ll have to get used to that
response.”
“Colonizing the stars is going to take a heck of a
long time if we’re limited to the speed of light. Isn’t there anything you can do about that,
love?”
“Don’t be silly, Ardy. You just don’t understand physics. The laws of mass and momentum prevent
velocities greater than the speed of light.”
“I know that, Steve.
But didn’t you tell me the space between the emitter and collector of
FERD is n-dimensional space? So if the everyday laws of physics don’t
apply within the field, why are we limited to the speed of light?”
“I hope this marriage is not going to start out with
you pointing out that I really am an absent minded professor every day, Ardy, once a month will be sufficient. The plain truth is that I forgot.”