Michael Brachman's Blog: Tales of the Vuduri, page 43

Trump and Musk 1

As anyone who has read this blog over the past few years, you know I am steadfast believer in climate change and am fervently in favor of any process that reduces the amount of greenhouses gases we emit. In fact, in the original long-form version of Rome's Revolution, back when it was entitled VIRUS 5, the long term effects of global warming were an essential element of the underlying geo-political environment. I had imposed the impractical "Rules of Green" on the people of the future which limited what they could and couldn't do, right down to creating open fires.

I have written week-long posts on renewable energy sources climaxing with solar as the way to go. Although I have heard various estimates, it goes something like this: enough sunlight falls on the Earth each day to power the entire planet's population needs for a whole year three times over. Elon Musk showed during his reveal of his Powerwall that if you could dedicate (my guess) a 20 mile by 20 mile square of solar panels (Musk showed the panhandle of Texas as an example), it could power the entire United States without the need of any other energy sources whatsoever. No more fossil fuels would be required!

With Mr. Musk's recent reveal of Solar Shingles, Tesla has created a complete solar to storage to transportation system. If you live in Florida or Texas or California, you may never have to pay for power or gasoline again. Oddly, this brings me to Mr. Trump. He has select Scott Pruitt, a climate change denier as his candidate for head of the EPA. First of all, I didn't even know there were any climate change deniers left out there. Second, how the hell could you put such a person in charge of the Environmental PROTECTION Agency if their agenda is to hurt the environment?

The U.S. has signed the Paris Agreement which commits the world to limiting the amount of greenhouse gasses with the short range goal of limiting the average rise in temperature to no more than two degrees Celsius, then 1.5 degrees with the long term goal of ultimately getting back to pre-industrial levels. This is a serious commitment to saving the Earth and I don't think Mr. Trump or Mr. Pruitt could "unsign" the agreement. But nonetheless, what the hell. A climate change denier in charge of the EPA? But then Mr. Trump did something that totally blew my mind. He invited a whole gaggle of industry titans to join his advisory council including Elon Musk. What the hell? Again? Does this mean there will be a voice of reason in the Trump Administration that can advocate taking measures to limit greenhouse gas emission and turn us toward basing our energy consumption on renewable sources rather than fossil fuel?

Impossible, you say. We are in for four years of pollution, expansion of coal burning and generally being a bad neighbor wrecking our world. Maybe not. There are two other people whose voices of reason may yet be still heard. I'll tell you who they are tomorrow.

The Story of Jack Henry 7

Yesterday, we saw Jack Henry and his mother Helen come across the Ark Lord encampment along the banks of the Ramapo River. Through a spyglass that had been handed down to him from hundreds of years ago, Jack had spotted a horse that he knew to be his father's horse. That told him that his father, if he was still alive, would be in that camp somewhere. However, these were men from the future (actually the past) with weapons and technology beyond Jack's comprehension. Jack and Helen were trying to come to grips with what their eyes were telling them. It never occurred to them that others might be watching them:

     “What do we have here?” a loud voice boomed. “Spying on us?”
     Helen gasped. Jack flipped around and saw six spacemen wearing body armor and helmets standing over them. Several of them were holding weapons aimed right at Jack and his mother. Jack’s crossbow lay uselessly out of reach.
     “Who, who are you?” Helen stammered, fear dripping in her voice.
     “This your son?” one of the men asked Jack’s mother, ignoring her question.
     “Ye…ye…yes…” Helen stuttered.
     “Good,” the man said. “She’s fertile and pretty damned cute. Take her.” Two of the soldiers bent over to grab Helen by the arms.
     “No,” Jack shouted, starting to get up. He lunged for the crossbow but one of the soldiers kicked it away then slammed him in the chest with the butt of his rifle. Jack fell to the ground, unable to breathe.
     “No, no,” his mother shrieked as four of the men grabbed her arms and legs. She thrashed about violently but there were too many of them. She screamed the whole time as they carried her away.
     Struggling to catch his breath, Jack tried to get up. One of the two remaining spacemen stamped down on his chest with his boot. He pointed his rifle at Jack’s forehead.
     “What do you want me to do with this one?” the soldier asked his superior.
     “Kill ‘im,” answered the other man, almost with glee in his voice.
     “No, please, my mother…” Jack pleaded, tears coming out of his eyes.
     “Grow up and die like a man,” the soldier said. He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
     “What the hell?” said the soldier. “Damn it. Out of juice,” he said. “I knew I should have recharged it.”
     “Then leave ‘im,” said the other man, “who cares?”
     Jack watched his captor swing his arm around. The rifle butt struck Jack square in the jaw and everything went black.

And that's that. Jack Henry never saw his mother again. Well, not exactly. He did see her once ten years later when she escaped the clutches of the Ark Lords. But the mother Jack knew was gone. His father was gone. He was on his own. This is how the greatest hero, the martyr, of the post-apocalypse was forged. The events that he witnessed did not make him powerless. Quite the opposite. Even though he could not save his parents, he went on to rally the people of northern Jersey and put together an army of rebels. They fought a guerilla war until they had acquired enough technology and savvy to put on a direct assault. That assault became known as the Battle of Chicago and was the beginning of the end of the Ark Lords.

The Story of Jack Henry 6

Yesterday, we saw Jack Henry and his mother Helen come across a grisly scene. The Wyckoff household had been ransacked and Mr. Wyckoff had been punctured full of laser holes and he bled to death. Jack and his mother headed off to the base of Campgaw Mountain and the deep bend of the Ramapo River. What Jack saw there was both incomprehensible and horrible:

     “Ride!” Jack shouted, “follow me.” He pulled on the reins and kicked at Tige’s flank, forcing him to gallop harder and harder. Helen was right behind him. In a minute or two, they entered the woods surrounding Campgaw Mountain. Jack slowed just a little and quickly wound his way around the trees up the mountainside until they came to a clearing about three quarters of the way up.
     He looked over the edge.
     “This’ll do,” he said and hopped down off of Tige. He tied the horse to a tree and removed his crossbow.
     “What did you see?” Helen asked him again as she tied Alexa next to Tige.
     “Spacemen,” he said.
     “What are spacemen?” Helen asked.
     “I’ll show you,” Jack said, hunching down and walking as close as he could come to the edge. He set his crossbow down and lay on the ground, flat on his stomach.
     “Here, look,” he said. Helen lay down next to Jack who handed her the spyglass.
     What Helen saw through the telescope almost defied description. At the south end of the valley lay two huge cylinders with gigantic wings, made of metal. The one farther south had numerous square holes in the roof. Helen spotted a perimeter fence running north to south that enclosed the whole area. About 50 feet from the river bank but well inside the fence, she saw countless shelters. It almost looked like a small village. Beyond the fence, she saw a huge, yellow, horseless carriage moving quickly to the north. Inside the fence, she could see a great number of people wandering around. A lot of them were wearing what looked to be ordinary clothes but there were several wearing the strange garments that Bill Franklin described, something other than cloth.
     Helen set the spyglass down and turned to Jack.
     “I don’t understand any of this,” she said. Jack reached over and took the spyglass back from her. He stared through the eyepiece as he spoke.
     “Dad told me all about them,” he said gravely. “It was part of my training to be a Cavalier. He said we had to know about the past so we didn’t repeat their mistakes for the future. All of that…” He took his eye off the telescope and looked at his mother. “It’s all forbidden technology. Those people down there, they escaped the Earth a long time ago in spaceships called Arks. Before the Great Dying. They are from the past. And now they’re back.”
     Helen looked over the edge. Her mind was reeling at the implications. She gasped. “Your father,” she said. “He must have found them, they, they must have…” She couldn’t finish her sentence.

Helen's intuition had led her to the correct conclusion. Jack's father was already dead. The Ark Lords did keep around a few men but mostly they wanted women for the purposes of breeding. Unfortunately for Jack, he and his mother did not remain hidden long enough. You'll see the conclusion tomorrow.

The Story of Jack Henry 5

Yesterday, I related to you that we had our first Ark Lord sighting, courtesy of Bill Franklin. The Ark Lords rode up on a thorium-powered transport, grabbed Neesy Franklin, and took off before Bill could stop them. In which direction? Bill pointed Helen and Jack in the direction of Pines Lake.

This is where things get really bad. Remember, the Ark Lords had laser pulse rifles, not that Jack had ever seen one. When Helen and Jack got to the Wyckoff's farm, what they found there made them sick:

     “Hello?” Jackie called out. There was no answer. He stepped across the threshold. “Hello?” he called again. The place was a mess. There were broken chairs, plates. A faint acrid smell of smoke still permeated the room. Jack cautiously eased forward. He scanned the room and quickly spotted the rotted body of a man. Portions of his legs looked eaten. Jack’s insides started heaving. He turned his head to the side and vomited.
     “What is it, Jackie?” his mother called from outside.
     After Jack stopped retching, he took a deep breath. “It’s Mr. Wyckoff,” he croaked. “At least, I think it is. He’s dead.”
     “What?” His mother came rushing into the room and saw her son standing there, staring at the body.
     “I threw up, Mom,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
     “Don’t be,” Helen said. She, too, felt her stomach jerking around a bit but she fought it back and stooped by the body. She glanced around the room and found a piece of wood splintered off of some furniture. She went over to grab it then used it to push back the shreds of clothing on the body.
     “Look at this, Jackie,” she said. Jack took a deep breath and bent over to see what she was indicating.
     “Look at all those holes,” Jack said. “Clean. Perfectly round. They weren’t made by bolts or arrows.” He looked down at the floor, stained black. “There’s blood everywhere,” he said. “What could do such a thing? They’re too small to be knife wounds.”
     “Nothing that I know of,” Helen said. “But whatever it is, it’s deadly. The holes go clean through him.”

We know what those holes are. They are laser burn holes. You can surmise that the Ark Lords entered the Wyckoff's house, took Mrs. Wyckoff and their daughter, and left Mr. Wyckoff riddled with laser holes. It wasn't the holes that killed him but rather that he bled out. So now the boy and his mother were getting close. It was time for Jack and Helen to arrive at the base of Campgaw Mountain, along the banks of the Ramapo River, next to the Ark Lords encampment.

It does not go well. You will see that tomorrow.

The Story of Jack Henry 4

Yesterday, I laid out the basic geography and political environment. Young Jack Henry and his mother, Helen, begin a search for Jack's father Jim, who has gone missing, by retracing his route on the "long ride" which was basically the Cavaliers checking in with the farmers across a wide region of land. Jim Henry's territory was what had been Northern New Jersey.

The first people they visited, the Maywoods, reported everything as normal. When they got to the Hawthornes, they also reported seeing Jim Henry. The only odd thing they saw was a huge dark shadow across the sky. We know the shadow was caused by the Ark V gliding down to Earth. The McFauls also saw Jim Henry. They reported an odd rumbling noise, presumably the SSTO booster that took the command module back to orbit.

The first truly frightening event was relayed to them when they got to the Franklins. Mr. Franklin had seen Jim Henry but a terrible thing happened to him. At first, he wouldn't even speak to Jack and Helen. He was very fearful. Eventually , he relented and allowed them to come in. I'll let him explain what happened:

     “Sit down,” Bill said, seeming to warm up to his visitors. “I’ve got some cider here left over from the fall, if you’d like.”
     “That would be very nice,” Helen remarked calmly. Jack sat next to her at the table.
     Bill went down to the root cellar and came up with a jug. He served the cider in a poor man’s ceramic mug. The mugs were basically made of rocky clay, fired in a hearth. Bill stared at Helen and Jack and then burst into silent tears.
     “What?” Helen asked, reaching forward to take Bill’s arm. “What happened?”
     “They took her,” he said.
     “Who?” Jack asked.
     “My wife, Neesy,” he said. “That’s what I told Jim.”
     “Who took her?” Helen asked.
     Bill leaned forward. “Men. Strange men.”
     “What do you mean?”
     Bill wiped his eyes and took a sip of the cider. “It was getting on near dusk. I was back in the woods, checking the traps, ‘bout ready to head back in when I heard her scream. I came out of the woods, racing toward the house, but I was too late to stop them.”
     “Stop them?” Helen asked. “Who?”
     “They had already busted down the door and grabbed her.”
     “Were they bandits? Nomads?”
     “No,” Bill said. “They rode in some sort of half-enclosed wagon, a big one, it was all yellow but it had no horse.”
     “A horseless wagon?” Jack asked incredulously. “Like before the Great Dying?”
     “Yes,” answered Bill. “And they were dressed in, I don’t know what. They weren’t clothes. They looked like metal or glass but gray. I don’t even know how to describe it. But it wasn’t cloth.”
     “What did you do?” Helen asked.
     “I did the only thing I could do. I came in the house, got my crossbow and went after them on horseback.”
     “Did you find them?”
     “No,” Bill said. “It was already getting dark. I only got a few miles and had to stop. By the next morning, there was no sign of them. I looked for days but whatever that thing was, it didn’t leave any tracks.” He looked up at Helen in anguish. “They took my wife and I let them.”

You will remember that when Rei was educated about the Ark Lords, the phrase "women were taken" was used. So the Ark Lords came in transports, took Bill Franklin's wife and left. By the way, the name Neesy is a derivative of my wife Denise's name. She had been bugging me to get her name into a book somehow.

Tomorrow, things turn really bad.

The Story of Jack Henry 3

Yesterday, I told you about how I selected where the Ark Lords, aka the Erklirte, set down. I also told you where they end up, namely Batavia, Illinois, the location of the Tevatron. So now we have the beginning and the end, time to fill in the middle. Luckily for me, I didn't have to do much work. I had created the characters and I let them tell me the story which I typed into the computer as fast as they could reel it off.

My vision of 600 years from now led me to speculate on a society that was mostly just farmers. No formal cities. No organized society. Just people growing crops and living. There was no government, no police force, no real crime anyway. I postulated that there would a hereditary, self-appointed set of peacekeepers called Cavaliers. They would just ride around their designated areas once a year. There would be a pair and they would circle in opposite directions and meet in the middle. Basically their job was to check in on people. But by the time Jack's father, Jim Henry was promoted, corruption had settled in and most of the Cavaliers became more like a protection racket rather than officers of the law. This one scene is where Jim Henry's partner showed up. You knew something was terribly wrong:

     “Where is Jim?” Cal asked. “He never showed up at the rendezvous point.”
     Helen’s knees gave out. Jack had to grab his mother to keep her from falling over.
     “Jackie, do you know?”
     “No, Uncle Cal,” the boy said. His mother started openly weeping. Jack let her settle on the ground. The black-shirted man stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder.
     “He went on his Long Ride, though, right?”
     Helen’s breath caught. She looked up at the Cavalier, squinting at the bright sun and said, “He left right on time.” She started crying again.
     “It doesn’t have to mean the worst,” Cal Brody said. “Maybe I just missed him.”
     Helen stared up at him from the ground. “He’d never miss a meet, Cal, you know that. Something has happened to him.” She put her hands up to her eyes and the crying turned to sobbing. Jack dropped to his knees to comfort his mother.
     “Will you go look for him, Uncle Cal?” he asked.
     “Can’t, boy,” Cal said. “I have a home too, you know. I went way out of my way just to stop here.”
     Jack looked over at the horse. The saddlebags were bulging. “You mean you have to go home to count your treasure.”
     Cal Brody’s eyes narrowed. He started to raise his hand then thought better of it. He turned away, walked back to his horse and remounted.
     “You take care of your mother,” he said, settling into the saddle. Grabbing the reins tight, he kicked the horse’s flanks and galloped away.

When the Cavaliers first started, they always wore white to indicate purity. But as you can see above, they had changed to black to indicate ill intent. Now I knew that Jack's father was already dead, long before Jack and his mother Helen suspected. But they had to figure it out for themselves. It became like a mystery, a miniature whodunit. I had Jack and his mother follow a trail, picking up clues along the way. I didn't even have to make up names for the families that Jack and Helen encountered. I just took the names of the towns that would be found on a modern day map: Maywood, Hawthorne, Franklin (Lakes) and Wyckoff all lie within 20 miles of Campgaw Mountain and the Ramapo River, near Paramus.

As Helen and Jack drew inexorably nearer the Ark Lords' camp, I made the scenes grow more and more gruesome. I'll show you the progression over the next day or so.

The Story of Jack Henry 2

As I mentioned yesterday, Jack Henry was (is?) an integral part of my future history. He lived (will live?) 800 years in the future and 600 years before Rei met Rome. Within the novel Rome's Revolution, he was mentioned several times as having nearly single-handedly beaten the Erklirte otherwise known as the Ark Lords.

But that was it. That's all I knew about him. I didn't know where he lived. I assumed Portugal. I didn't know how he beat the Ark Lords. I didn't know his age or his compatriots. He was a complete mystery to me. While I was writing The Ark Lords, I realized I would need to finally craft out his story. I had sketched out a YA, first person narrative but that only went for a few paragraphs. The time had come to make him a living, breathing person.

The first thing I did was move him from Europe to North America. I figured by the time the Vuduri had evolved, our continent would have been largely abandoned but right after The Great Dying, there would have been survivors here. Also, some people would have been the descendants of the designers of the Darwin Project so there was no reason to believe there wouldn't be people here at least for a few centuries.

Further, I knew I wanted to involve the Tevatron for a variety of reasons. It had just been decommissioned as I was writing the book and its unique figure eight outline might be visible from space with the right equipment. I decided that Jack Henry (and now his troops) would fight it out with the Ark Lords in Batavia, Illinois but the conflict would become known as the Battle of Chicago.

I had an ending point. Now I needed a starting point. So I wrote about what I know. I put the people populating this era in New Jersey, North Jersey, actually. I scouted the maps and found some neat geographic features around Campgaw Mountain and the Ramapo River. So I built up a scenario whereupon the Ark Lords landed the crew compartment then went up and got the cargo compartment and set up a base along the river. The arrow points at their landing spot:



Tomorrow, I fill you in on how Jack Henry and his mother Helen, happened upon this spot.

The Story of Jack Henry 1

The story of Jack Henry, or Hanry Ta Jihn in Vuduri, is part legend, part history and an integral part of the 35th century world of Rome's Revolution. But until The Ark Lords, I had no real forum to present his story. I had tried to write a novel about him called The Last Cavalier but I wrote it in first person and from the perspective of a 15 year-old boy. I couldn't get the voice right so I abandoned it. However, the seeds had been planted. I saw Rome and Rei's trip to Earth as a chance to flesh out Jack Henry's adventures using a flashback type of narrative. I also wanted to write it in a different style. Somehow I wanted to produce a literary sepia-tone effect like in the movies when they are showing flashbacks. My style during this interlude was much more visceral. I included less action and more sensory description.

This has not gone unnoticed. Several of my readers have confirmed that they could tell it was written in a different style and most enjoyed it. The fact is, later on in The Ark Lords, I explained away the Jack Henry section by claiming that Rome psychically went back in time when she touched an 800 year-old pool of dried blood belonging to Jack Henry who was actually one of her ancestors. I always knew Rome had latent psychic powers which were developed in Rome's Evolution. So over the next day or so, I will give you a brief synopsis of the legend of Hanry Ta Jihn and point out where his struggles became relevant to the modern day novel. Here is a brief introduction. See if you can notice the difference in writing style:

     Fifteen year-old Jack Henry stood in the center of the corn field, carefully pouring buckets of water at the base of each plant, row by row. It was the only way to keep them from wilting under the burning rays of the sun in the August heat. The corn was only chest-high and he still had a long wait before the rainy season did his job for him. He stood up to straighten his back and his attention was caught by a tiny column of dust off in the distance. The blazing sun was so bright he couldn’t make out any detail.
    “Dad!” he exclaimed. He threw the bucket down and raced back to the house yelling out, “Mom, Mom, Dad’s back.”
    Helen Henry came out of the house to see what the commotion was about. She, too, saw the dust cloud approaching and stepped off the porch to join her son.
    Jack looked up at his mother’s face and the sheer bliss that painted it. He knew she would forget all about how angry she had been, knowing that her husband was so many weeks late.
    Jack turned back toward the road. As the rider came within view, he immediately noticed something was wrong. The mount was a huge chestnut-colored horse, not Dad’s black Sherwood named Walter. And the rider wore a black shirt. His dad never wore anything but white.
    Helen drew nearer, putting her arm around Jack and squeezing him tight. He looked up at her again and now there were tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
    The rider reined up and smoothly dismounted from the horse whose hide was glistening with a thick sheen of sweat from exertion. The kerchiefed man with mismatched boots strode quickly up to Jack and his mother.

I'm not going to quote you the whole story but I will give Jack's synopsis. The interesting thing is I didn't know his story until I wrote it!

Walking on the Moon

Yesterday, MINIMCOM informed Rome and Rei that he did not believe that the Darwin Project beacon, nestled with the Perepelkin Crater on the far side of the Moon, would survive being transported within MINIMCOM's cargo bay. He suggested that Rome and Rei go out and examine it. This required that they put on their pressure suits and take an EVA:

     Rei and Rome walked down the corridor to the cargo bay. Rei could feel his suit stiffening up as MINIMCOM pumped the air out of the compartment. He pressed the blue stud that raised the hatch and lowered the cargo ramp. Recalling his experience on Dara, Rei held Rome’s hand as they hopped down the ramp. The gravity was so light, it was hard to keep balance. They stopped when they got to the bottom of the ramp so they could get their bearings.
     “Ready?” Rei asked Rome.
     “Yes,” Rome replied firmly. She took the lead.
     “Funny,” Rei thought as they crunched along the dusty surface.
     “What?”
     “I loved that night we walked on the beach, under the Moon. Well, until we were kidnapped, at least. I never thought I’d be walking on the Moon with you.”
     “As long as we are together, does it matter?” Rome asked.
     “No, I guess not,” Rei said as they approached the probe. “Oh crap!”
     “What?” Rome asked.
     “No wonder it stopped broadcasting. Look at it.”
     Rome shuffle-hopped over to probe. It was leaning to one side. Two of the four legs were bent. Most of the upper portion was shredded metal with a large hole punched through the top, exposing its inner workings. It looked like someone had shot a baseball through it.
     Rei bent over. Cautiously, he bent the metal back to inspect the inside. He looked up into the sky and then back down at the probe. “You can see the trajectory,” he said. “There.” He pointed to the fragments of a small rock on the other side of the probe. “That’s what hit it,” he said.
     “Do you think we can repair it?” she asked.
     “I don’t know,” Rei said. “Let’s get it inside and I’ll take a look.”
     Very gently, they lifted the probe which was surprisingly light and carried it back to the starship, up the ramp and set it down within the cargo compartment.
     MINIMCOM sealed the chamber, repressurized it and Rei and Rome removed their helmets.
     Rei stooped down and very carefully peeled back the outer casing to inspect the inside. After a few seconds, he said, “It’s hopeless. Look.” He pointed to the remains of the interior. “The circuitry isn’t just damaged, it’s gone. There’s nothing left to repair.”
     “Now what?” Rome asked. “How do we find where the virus is being stored?”
     Rei shook his head. “I have no clue. We’re just going to have to find another way.”

Now it may seem like this was a completely useless excursion. But it was not. The very existence of the probe told Rei something. He just wasn't sure what. And the fact that older, inanimate objects disintegrate upon transport will be a critical plot element later in the book.

The Setup

Yesterday, our heroes arrived at the Perepelkin Crater on the far side of the Moon and located a transmission beacon placed there by Colonel Slayton and the members of the Darwin Project. This is a giant MacGuffin. It is simply to establish the principle that very old, inanimate objects disintegrate when they are transported aboard MINIMCOM.

In the very beginning of the book, I had demonstrated that MINIMCOM's livetar can swoop in and grab a dangerous object and transport it out. That was one part of the puzzle. The other was set up here:

     Within the craterlet sat a small metallic object, perched on four tiny spindly legs, listing to one side.
     “That’s it!” Rei said, pointing. “MINIMCOM, is it still active?”
     “Scanning…” MINIMCOM said. After a moment, he replied, “there is no signal.”
     “Are you sure?”
     “I have scanned every frequency from one Hertz up to the Terahertz band,” MINIMCOM said. “It is dead.”
     “Try again,” Rome insisted. “It’s important.”
     “Scanning…again…” MINIMCOM said with a hint of impatience. After a moment, the starship answered, “Still nothing. I detect no electrical activity whatsoever.”
     Rome turned to Rei. “What if we recovered it? Do you think we could power it up again?”
     “It’s worth a try,” Rei said. “MINIMCOM, can you transport it into your cargo hold?’
     “I do not think it a wise idea if you want try to reactivate it.”
     “Why?”
     “It is over one thousand years old. And it is inorganic. My transport mechanism seems to work best with organic molecules. They have a certain cohesion, a stickiness, that allows the object to remain intact longer. With something as fragile as the probe, I believe transporting it might destabilize it.”
     “How come you never told us this before?” Rei asked.
     “It did not seem relevant.”
     “So what are we supposed to?” Rei asked. “Go out and get it?”
     “I apologize but I believe that to be your best course of action.”

The entire premise is preposterous of course. Metal is metal. Molecules are molecules. So the "age" of the object is completely irrelevant. How does the universe know the age of an object when it is formed from molecules that have been around since the beginning of time?

The answer is: it does not, but things are happening so fast that it is my hope that you, the reader, ignore this giant plot hole. I needed to set up the circumstances wherein I could "kill" MINIMCOM later in the book. I have nothing against MINIMCOM. In fact, I like him. But a dramatic death is still dramatic, even if it isn't permanent so forgive me for this little sleight of hand.