Page 102 - Psychoceramics and the Test of Fire

Secrets of the Endosphere

one at a time, accompanied by a thick file of documents related to the
next lucky nutcase and whatever ad hoc trimmings were necessary to
clothe me and my mission of munificence in some decent shreds of
credibility.
Cade came to Al Magnus’s attention following the test of a stealth
dirigible promoted by the former. Having one day seen a blimp
covered in electric lights advertising beer and automobile tires, he was
immediately struck by the thought that this could be adapted as a
means of camouflage. The rounded surface of a zeppelin already
could act a radar deflector, were its skin coated with an
electromagnetically absorbent film and its internal structure angled to
bounce radio waves in desired directions, but its slow speed and low
altitude allowed it to be visually identified. Cade hit upon the idea of
real-time pixelated projected transparency. Cameras on the top of the
airship would receive a hemispherical image of the sky overhead and
transmit it to the light-emitting diodes directly opposite that spherical
co-ordinate on the bottom of the craft. Thus from any vantage point
on the ground, a viewer would see only the sky behind the vessel.
Cade managed to convince a low-level military man with whom he
had an acquaintance to present his design to higher-ups. A request
came down for a scale model. Cade, owner of a kite and model
airplane shop, concocted a rudimentary demonstration with a beach
ball covered in hobby-shop electronic components. He sent it across
a wire stretched between two trees under which sat his guests. The
army people were impressed. They gave him a security clearance,
swore him to secrecy and drove off with the device in their Jeep. But
Cade had patented his process, and waited impatiently for what he
had assumed would be public recognition of his talent. After a year
had passed and he had heard nothing, he broke his vow of silence,
vehemently. In letters to newspapers, phone calls to radio stations
and online postings, he castigated the Department of Defense for
either ignoring his invention or denying him credit or recompense.
His description of near-invisible slow-moving warships with huge
payloads of bombs and missiles created a minor sensation, forcing
the government’s hand.
Yes, a DoD spokesman said, in a carefully worded statement, the
army had looked at this suggestion from an inventive member of the
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