Al entered the vast auditorium in the new World Trade Center in New York to the cheers and applause of thousands of pairs of hands. The bright flashes of hundreds of cameras and the glare from overhead floodlights made him squint. He smiled and waved as he turned and made his way up the short stairs to the stage and walked over to the extended hand of the President of the Global Commerce Symposium.

"Hello, Al," shouted the President over the cacophony of applause.

Al detected the smell of Scotch on the man’s breath. He couldn’t recall the old guy's name, so he smiled and shook hands energetically, hoping the man wouldn’t feel insulted. Al paused and waved to the folks who had come to the award presentation in his honor and then took the only empty chair.

The audience calmed down and took their seats.

In the front row, Al saw his wife, two sons, mother, and father. They smiled with obvious pride. Cheryl had worked two jobs during the lean times so he could keep working in his laboratory. She was a First Class wife and he was lucky to have her. He smiled and nodded. His eight year old son, Roy, waved back. His teenager, James, resisted embarrassing himself. That was when Al noticed James had brought a young girl with him. So my son is dating at last. When he smiled at her, she smiled back, revealing a mouthful of braces.

"Dr. Albert Zontee," the President said into the microphone at the podium, "has done more for world peace and prosperity than millions of scientists and engineers put together. His discovery of the perfect way for us to eliminate the threat of global warming has saved us not only from ecological disaster; it has also provided a means for survival for untold millions who live in hot climates.”

The speaker gripped the edges of the podium with both hands as if to steady himself. “All over the world, folks who live near the oceans have been spared from its flooding their homes, their crops, and their businesses. By stopping global warming, Dr. Zontee has saved millions of lives and livelihoods. From the rising waters surrounding New Orleans putting the city under greater risk from another Hurricane Katrina, to the need for higher and higher levees right here in the city of New York as well as countless cities around the globe, and to worry that building even higher dikes in The Netherlands may not be enough, people and businesses everywhere have been saved.

“In the Pacific Ocean alone, dozens of island nations have been spared that would have otherwise dropped out of sight underwater.

"Like his namesake, Albert Einstein, his contributions to humanity have altered forever our understanding of the laws of physics."

At the mention of Einstein, Al flinched. They always mention that, don't they? It's a temptation too hard to ignore. For him, it was an embarrassment, because just as the famous Albert had his "cosmological factor", so did he. Only Einstein’s factor eventually became the opening in the theory of relativity for an understanding of dark mass and dark energy.

No one knew yet what truths might lie hidden in his own factor, which he had added solely to make his complicated equations work.

As the President continued, Al recalled the long years of struggling to build thousands of cooling plants on every continent, and of course, the dozen huge spiral wheels in low orbit that channeled the excess heat energy elsewhere. For who knew where that energy went?

Thousands of eyes focused on him from people dressed in suits and warm attire. This auditorium had a reputation for being cool. Outside it was the middle of summer, but you'd never know it from the way people kept their legs together and their arms crossed. A draft of cool air chilled the left side of his face.

You'd think the idiots would turn down the air!

The speaker continued, "No longer do we have to worry about overheating our cities, our lands, and our oceans with the waste heat that naturally comes from our increased presence on the planet."

As the man went on to describe Al's earlier life of poverty, Al took the time to work on his one remaining intellectual problem--that damned added factor. It made his equations look awkward and he regretted it. Whatexactly is the alpha exponent anyway?

"Albert Zontee would call it a heat sink,” the President continued, “but for those who may not know the term, it means that our excess heat, our global warming, is being washed down the sink, so to speak, into another dimension."

Al's imagination often led him to ponder where the thermal energy went. Space was far larger than most folks realized and the chances that Earth's excess energy was pouring onto some unknown planet in that other dimension were vanishingly small. No, it was far more likely that the energy was venting into the empty space between stars and it could go on doing that forever.

People in the audience fidgeted as some uncrossed their legs while others opened their jackets. Their body language made Al realize that he too was getting warmer. Maybe the custodian had not only turned off the air but had turned on the heat. Damned idiot! He would fire the man on the spot if he worked for him.

Vibrations from his pocket alerted him to a call. Only his assistant, Jamie, had this number and she knew the importance of not interrupting him here. It must be an emergency.

He pulled his phone from his right hip, opened the cover, and pressed it to his ear while the President spoke of his early business struggles. He leaned to one side to avoid having his voice project to the podium. "What the hell is it?"

"I'm sorry, sir," replied Jamie, "but Cary demands to speak with you."

Cary Smythe was his manager of the critically important orbiting stations. He was up at Station One supervising the implementation of the new antennas. Cary knew of this ceremony and would never call unless it was bloody serious.

Al sighed. "Put him on."

"Al! We've got a Problem."

He could hear the capital letter in the man's voice. Have the terrorists managed to sabotage our quadrupled security on the stations? He found that hard to believe.

"We've activated the new microwave antennas,” added Cary, “but the added energy isn't enough."

Al recalled the installation of an array of ten huge solar panels in orbit around the Earth and Moon. They collected prodigious levels of solar energy and converted it to microwave radiation. Beamed in lasers to the orbiting Earth station's new antennas, he had hoped it would add enough energy to pump the portals.

According to his equations, the channeling of Earth's waste heat into the other dimension required additional energy. As the years went by, more and more energy was needed to overcome some as yet not understood resistance in the channel. It was almost as if the energy required would become infinite.

Cary asked, "Can I activate the reactors, sir?"

Al had nuclear reactors placed on his stations in the event that the solar panels failed. He had to keep the stations running full throttle to keep up with the demands of billions of active people and businesses. They were beyond the point where they could turn off the cooling effect of his invention. Earth would surely cook to death if they did.

"If we don't, sir," added Cary, "I'm afraid...."

Al knew what that man meant: shutting down the stations, the unthinkable option. I’ll have to do a thorough review when I get back to the office. He sighed. ”Yes, go ahead."

"Thank you, sir."

Al recalled his private project to examine all the data from the past ten years to refine the value of his 'cosmological' factor. Everything he tried in the past had failed but now he felt the stirrings of a completely new idea. He took out his ever present notepad, impatient to try it out. He tried dissecting his alpha factor into a constant plus a variable for time multiplied by another factor, which he naturally called beta. Beta turned out to be a function of an imaginary number; one that contained the square root of minus one. But that’s impossible!

His mind now pumped up by his fresh insight, he scribbled more equations. A drop of sweat slipped from his forehead and stained the notepaper. Damned it's hot in here! He wanted to take off his jacket but knew that would be impolite. He looked up and saw hundreds of men doing just that and he envied them. The women fanned themselves with their printed program sheets.

"Excuse me a moment," said the President. He poured from the ice pitcher on the podium into a glass and took a long drink. When he set it back down, he turned to his left. "Can someone do something about the temperature in here?" Laughter and applause greeted his comment. "Ladies and gentleman, in light of the warmth we are experiencing, I think it would be appropriate if you wanted to remove your jackets, ties, and any extra clothing you might be wearing. Excuse me while I take mine off."

That brought a frenzy of activity as people everywhere adjusted their attire for more comfort in the now blistering heat. Al doffed his jacket too and felt momentary relief.

The President added, "Would someone open the doors to let some air in here?"

The incompetence of the facilities manager irritated Al. This is my crowning ceremony, one I’ve looked forward to for a year now. And some jackass is ruining it!

Some folks stood to look at the doors. Others complained of the heat. It sounded to Al as if nearly everyone spoke at the same time.

His growing anger was tempered by the inspiration of his new beta factor. What would it take for that imaginary number to become real? His attention returned to his stained notepad. If I could just change that minus one to a positive one...what would that require?

He thought of his inter-dimensional equations and that minus one. Where does it come from?

Only once before in his life had something smitten him like it did now. That was when he first pictured the equations that would lead to his invention. Now, the light went on a second time in his head. Only this time, it meant changing his equations. Why hadn't he seen this before? The imaginary number might not be imaginary in the other dimension. It might be an ordinary number there!

He leaned back in his chair. But what does it all mean?

For the first time, he understood why it took increasing amounts of energy to get the channels to work. His 'heat sink' was really running up against a limit. When he replaced the minus one with a positive one, he got the equation for a capacitor!

The realization came as a shock. In that instant, the reason for the rising resistance to more energy became clear. He looked around him. He had to get out of here. He had to get to a place where he could make a private call to Cary. He couldn't talk freely in front of thousands of prying eyes. He had to warn the man to shut down the stations!

As if on cue, his cell phone vibrated once again. It was Jamie and her voice carried her tears with it. "The stations, sir! They’re gone!" She sobbed hysterically.

"Get hold of yourself, Jamie!"

By now the voices from the audience complaining of the heat were too loud for him to hear and he pressed one finger into his other ear to shut them out. He yelled into the mouthpiece, "Tell me exactly what is happening!"

Jamie wailed, "The stations are gone--every one of them. They all disappeared at the same time.” She burst into sobs again.

Al recalled her husband worked on Station Seven.

“And then…and then…” She struggled to get hold of herself. “And in their places are powerful white lights, blinding lights that are hot!"

Al froze and dropped his cell. He looked up to see light coming from all the open doors, light so strong it blinded him and he instinctively held his hand in front of his eyes. He heard shouts of panic and saw dozens of people running to the doors that led deeper into the building. The light grew in intensity and became painful! The air became severely hot and he found it hard to breathe as well.

He scanned the room in brief moments between squinted eyelids. Everywhere people jumped over chairs and trampled and shoved each to the floor as they tried to escape amidst screams and shouts.

He knew what was happening: the strong rise in total energy going out from the earth had been stored in a cosmic extra-dimensional capacitor. It had reached its maximum load and was now releasing its stored energy, including all the solar and nuclear energy they had added. All of it was now coming out of those holes in the sky in a short burst.

It was probably cooking the atmosphere, burning the ground, cars, pedestrians, everything. Fires would spread everywhere. Those inside buildings would live a little longer. Those well below ground would be the last to feel the heat. But not for long, as the atmosphere boiled away.

His family stayed in their seats and kept looking at him with begging eyes for a solution to this problem like he had done so many times before. They stayed despite the mass of people in front of them pushing to get to the side doors with their hands raised to block the heat and light. His eighty-year old father sat bent over his mother, to protect her as much as he could, despite what must have been painful radiation burns on his bald head.

It hurt to look in their direction, and even though Al held his hands tight over his eyes, increasing radiant heat cooked his hands and face. It was like he was standing in front of an open door of a roaring coal furnace. The whole room became an oven bathed in intolerable heat and light. Screams of fear and panic filled his ears.

His shoulders sagged in grief and he sobbed. He cried not only for himself, but for Cheryl, James, and Roy, as well as his aged parents. He cried for people everywhere because no place on Earth would be spared the onslaught of energy coming out of those damned holes in the sky!

What have I done!