{"id":165,"date":"2014-07-03T15:15:30","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T20:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/?p=165"},"modified":"2014-07-03T15:20:10","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T20:20:10","slug":"the-device","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/the-device\/","title":{"rendered":"The Device"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Still wiping tears away behind my funeral veil, I walked into George&#8217;s study quietly. I could still hear the other mourners through the heavy wooden door, but only in low tones. Many people showed up to pay respects to my poor George. The house was full of scientific colleagues, neighbors, academicians and family. No one understood why he was killed in such a vicious way, well no one except the FBI and me.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #404040;\">\u00a0<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">George never could keep secrets from me, not after 29 years of marriage. He told me the last morning I saw him that he was delivering his device to representatives of the US Department of Energy that afternoon. In anticipation of his triumph, I had started preparing a private dinner of prime rib, potatoes and asparagus when I heard a knock at the door.<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;Mrs. Radcliffe?&#8221; said the dour faced man in the dark gray suit standing on the porch.<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;Yes, Jenna Radcliffe,&#8221; I said, standing in the doorway blocking his view of the inside.<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;Mrs. Radcliffe, I am Special Agent Roger Burroughs, FBI.&#8221; His hand snapped open a leather wallet displaying his shield and identification.<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;I&#8217;m sorry? How can I help you?&#8221; I said.<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;May I come in? I&#8217;d rather not discuss this matter out here. It concerns your husband, Professor George Radcliffe.&#8221;<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">I was hesitant, especially now that I noticed the other agents exiting the two black SUVs in our driveway. Reluctantly, I opened the door wide and motioned Agent Burroughs through into the formal sitting room.<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;Ma&#8217;am, I&#8217;m very sorry to tell you your husband was killed this afternoon in the parking lot of the University.&#8221;<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">I started to hyperventilate and my skin went cold. &#8220;Oh my God. How? A hit and run?&#8221; I sank into the armchair behind me and put my head in my hands trying to hold back the tears.<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;No ma&#8217;am, his car exploded. We have a forensics team on site now, but it will be a while before they can give me any answers.&#8221;<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;A car bomb? Why would anyone want to kill George to begin with? He was a good man, trying to do great things. Why?&#8221;<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;I was hoping you could help me with those questions, Mrs. Radcliffe,&#8221; he said.<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;No, no. Everyone liked George.&#8221; I said.<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;Do you know what his plans were today? Where he may have been going when he left the office at about 1:30 this afternoon?&#8221;<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;Well, he mentioned he was meeting with people from the DOE this afternoon. He was going to show them his prototype Tesla device.&#8221;<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;Tesla device?&#8221;<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;Yes.&#8221; I said. &#8220;His prototype device could produce free electricity from the air around it. He called it the Tesla device after Nikola Tesla, the man that-&#8220;<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">&#8220;Yes, I know of Tesla and his free energy experiments. I will have to check with DOE on the meeting particulars. Did your husband keep notes or designs for the device anywhere?&#8221; Burroughs was busily thumbing on his smartphone.<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">The knock on the study door interrupted my reminiscence. &#8220;Mrs. Radcliffe?&#8221; said Agent Burroughs.<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">I quickly walked behind George&#8217;s desk and slid open the wall panel that hid his whiteboard. On it were the plans and equations for the Tesla device. They found the device and George&#8217;s tablet, both destroyed by the explosion that killed him. The DOE denied any meeting or contact with my husband about the device. Apparently, the government has no interest in free energy and went to great lengths to stop my husband.\u00a0<\/span><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><br style=\"color: #404040;\" \/><span style=\"color: #404040;\">I started erasing in the upper left corner.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>~~~~~~<\/p>\n<p>And that is my\u00a0entry in\u00a0the weekly\u00a0writing exercise on G+ as part of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/108131446424328262298\/posts\/TDfHfyDDx1L\" target=\"_blank\">Writer&#8217;s Discussion Group<\/a>\u00a0for this week.\u00a0Everyone submits stories in the comments of the post at the link and anyone can +1 their favorites. In the end the story with the most +1 votes gets a little recognition. This is a weekly thing and this time the story is based on this image.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/-nxnlTfRuHDU\/U7GSBgCdwPI\/AAAAAAAAI30\/SGU7rPqoVwo\/w506-h356\/physics.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"506\" height=\"356\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Still wiping tears away behind my funeral veil, I walked into George&#8217;s study quietly. I could still hear the other mourners through the heavy wooden door, but only in low tones. Many people showed up to pay respects to my poor George. The house was full of scientific colleagues, neighbors, &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flash-fiction","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169,"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions\/169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkilgallon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}