As I walked back to Nido’s garage, I began to think about the fact that Nido must have driven to work everyday, but I had never known what car was his. Now I was going to see what it was he drove there, and if it had any peculiarities similar to this house. I wasn’t sure if he even drove anything actually, come to think of it. On my reflections of everything, I remembered that Nido had taken the bus to work most days. I couldn’t imagine him actually interacting with the bus driver though, except for the usual courtesies that anyone would exchange with a bus driver when he got on or off the bus. I approached and opened the door to find a car there, but nothing I would have expected, but on the other hand the whole house had been like this so far. The car was an old Motel A ford, and was actually in really good condition. The inside of the car was more curious though, since it looked to be extremely luxurious and technological. It had a full speaker system, as well as a modern navigation system that Nido must have had installed recently. The engine looked new and of very high quality, Nido must have spent a good amount of time on this car, but it made me wonder about how efficient Nido was at his work in general. I began to come to the conclusion that a car like this only would have taken Nido a matter of weeks with his strict attention to whatever he happened to be working on. It couldn’t have taken him any longer, I figured, with just the sheer amount of things he had made, he couldn’t have spent that much time on each, and his simple skill level would have increased for all things creative.
There were, as you might imagine a lot of tables and tools and unusual gadgets around the garage aside from just the Motel A. One thing of particular note was Nido’s bicycle, which was nothing too spectacular to look at, probably for strategic reasons, but it did have some baskets that unfolded when necessary to create a lot of storage space. It looked like Nido had used this a lot, and actually kind of curious, I opened the garage and took it out. Nido hung his bicycle from the ceiling, and I had a little difficulty getting it down, until I noticed that he actually made a tool for just such a purpose, and when I used this hook like thing to get the bike down it came down with a grace and ease I didn’t realize was possible. Taking the bicycle outside, I was ready to see what Nido had done, and as I sat on it, the seat seemed uncommonly comfortable, especially for a bicycle. I put my feet in the pedals and as I drove off the amount of speed I achieved for such a small amount of effort was amazing. One thing I thought was a little odd about the bike was that the bars were actually a transparent white plastic, with what looked to be a system of chains and gears inside. This was perhaps the most visually outstanding part of the bike. But it took off with a celerity and force that made it seem like I was biking downhill the entire time I was on it. Even going up hill through the trails of trees near Nido’s house was quite nice. It then dawned on me that Nido must have made this particularly comfortable and interesting bicycle to go to the bus stop with, and I wondered how far that might possibly be.
Out of pure curiosity I decided to see if I could actually figure out where the bus stop was, and it gave me an excuse to test the bike a little more. As I drove on, I found that this bike handled especially well, and only gave the lightest of resistance. I didn’t know what Nido had done, but I was eager to find out when I returned. I figured he must have had some sort of plan or schematic laid out to explain the mechanical processes of the bike. After a while of driving on the old dirt road we had driven in on, I found a far away and virtually deserted bus stop that had only one bus running. The bus’s time table was up, and it occurred to me now, just how Nido’s work schedule was laid out. Strangely, it wouldn’t have taken him very long to get to work, and maybe if he was feeling bolder or running later, he could have even bicycled there. When I parked, I noticed that the bike stood by itself, but then found a sort of kickstand system that had dropped down when I had gotten off. This was an automatic thing, and I figured Nido really knew how to act concerning weights. Something else that happened when I got off is in a few hidden orifices of the bike; little bags came out, particularly, one by the seat and one by either handle. I took these things pulled them out, and eventually figured out that they were meant for the seat and handles, they covered them in such a fashion that they would protect these areas from weather, giving Nido a clean and dry seat when he got home. I walked around a little, just to enjoy the pleasant day I was in, and when I came back, I felt that the seat and the handles were both warm. Apparently Nido had configured some sort of heating apparatus for these things to make the experience of returning home all the more pleasant.
I decided it would be best to return back to Nido’s house, so that Kelly wouldn’t get worried, and also just to explore his garage some more. I came back, to find Kelly waiting there, with her hands on her hips and a look of mock scolding. When I got home and put the bicycle back to its storage place, I asked Kelly how she was. She asked me where I’d gone, and I told her I wanted to try out the bike, and she then inquired what I thought of it, and what it did. I explained to her all of the functions, and told me she had discovered some plans that Nido had drawn up, but not been able to build yet. She told me about many different kinds she had and I was rather surprised about some of the ambition Nido had for some of them. One plan in particular I thought was interesting, Kelly told me about was called ‘The worm’. It was a design for a new transportation system based on an earthworm, and going through the mud in the same way that they would. Kelly led me to the draft table where Nido had that laid out, and I decided to have a look at it more in depth. The principle looked quite awesome, and the way it worked, was to move through the ground in a way that would replace the mud as it left. Notably, it was completely cylindrically shaped, with a large hole in the middle and the dirt would be processed through here at what looked like an extremely fast rate. As it would go through, the worm in a sort of regurgitation style, a person would lay down with a sort of monitor above his face in one of the chambers of the worm. They would accelerate and steer where they would go, but much in the same manner that an astronaut might during a space shuttle launch.
On notes beside the blueprint I’d been looking at, were detailed schematics of how everything would work, how much energy it would need, and on some side notes, Nido seemed to suggest that the energy that the worm could use, could actually be taken from the earth itself, as the worm moved through. It was a bit strange though, and I seriously doubted its actual plausibility for a large variety of reasons. For the mere reason that it was only a blueprint, I believe that Nido himself had these doubts as well. I was impressed by the sheer theory that Nido had and even if it didn’t always work, it seemed, at least here, that he was at least willing to entertain any option. This said, I did wonder if Nido considered different consistencies that the worm would have to move through. Also, I was curious as to how he intended to steer this thing, but as I peered further at the illustrations and schematics, it seemed he had taken at least that part into account, with mechanisms to alter its course, and to make it surface in a graceful manner. One further application I was curious about was what would become of the leftover dirt that the worm had plowed through. It was a question I asked myself aloud, and when looking at some of the notes, found a slight answer. Basically, it seemed that the earth would treat the soil in the same way as a real earthworm, by adding fertility to the ground it moved through. The thing, at least on paper, was a little over a meter wide and roughly three meters long. In the center was a large cavity that could open and close so as to process the dirt through.
The worm, as Nido wrote, was theoretically able to move at a rate between 100 to 300 kilometers/hour. Part of the way it was able to ‘metabolize’ the soil so quickly was simply because, according to the notes, it would essentially open itself up for ultimate geodynamics. The engines that drove this thing forward took a lot of resources too, namely it required a good deal of some sort of lubricant, as well as lots of regular fuels like oil for the motors found in the center. The design itself incorporated a few non-actual-worm details, such as a series of treads that would move the thing, mostly on the surface, but underground it appeared they would be utilized to claw through the dirt too with arms that would raze anything in front of it. These treads were placed all around the design, so there were roughly 30 of them. The entrance to the thing for the human passenger was actually a little strange as it had to be arranged through the treads. The way one would enter would be by getting in near the end of the thing (the area where the worm would essentially expel its leftover gravel), and a door type thing would slide forward detaching several of the treads with it, and reattaching them when the hatch was shut. The potential distances this thing might travel were rather difficult to fully guess, but Nido predicted a time limit might be roughly five hours, or a distance of about 1,000 kilometers. Near the draft table oddly enough, were some of the parts, namely the motors and things that Nido would need to run this machine. It appeared that this was one of Nido’s most recent projects, and that he actually had hope to create this thing, and mostly was working on it here, in his garage.
I wondered why Nido would be working on it here in his garage rather than some place more suiting for such projects, such as his studio, and I came to the conclusion that it was likely to do with the size of the project itself. My guess was that Nido likely worked on his largest and most mobile projects here in the garage, for a variety of reasons. One major reason I suspected was simply to try out what he was working on as he worked on it, as he would have ample space for such test drives here. I figured he also built his hovercraft as well as restored his Motel A here for such reasons as well, though I’m sure he worked on individual components in his workshop and for ease of transportation would bring them up and assemble them here. That having been said, Nido did actually have a huge capacity to work on various things in his garage itself, with a huge array of tools and materials for nearly any purpose. I mention here too, that aesthetics seemed to be a constant source of interest to Nido, for around his tool benches and the garage itself the garage was painted to resemble what I could only describe as the history of transportation on its wall. This wasn’t done in a half hearted sort of way, but rather in a giant mural of fantastically well done progressions in an evolving sort of painting the way one would think of MC Escher doing it. Only this painting lacked an end, and left it blank. I wondered if part of the reason for Nido making these paintings was simply to inspire himself as he went on, trying to add his mark and understanding to whatever he was doing, be it adding a new kind of vehicle or simply to gain a more appreciative view of the things he was working on. The open ended part of the wall was a bit surprising to me, but after some consideration made more sense, basically, Nido wanted to leave room for improvement as if to say, what there currently is, is not the end, and there likely never will be one, at least no time soon. This in my mind, made Nido the quite the optimist, always knowing that mankind will achieve more.
Looking again at the drafting table where I’d picked up the blueprints and notes for the worm, I found more prints of lots of things. The first thing I came across was what looked to be some sort of aeronautic vessel with a series of eight wings titled the xox. This was not laid out in the usual airplane format one may be used to, mind, but rather the craft itself seemed to be conical, like a rocket. The rocket had a few peculiar properties superficially. Basically, this concerned the four wings; they were all pointed far out like a regular airplane, but in four perpendicular directions, much like an arrow’s tails, but taking up a much greater portion of the vessel. The four other wings had a much less conventional design, and occupied the 45° between either of the wings. What they did differently was they ran the length of the vessel, so as to be more up and down on the plane rather than out, and more significantly the curved. All of them nearly curved half way around the plane in a very carefully designed manner, creating a great swirling effect. These curling wings seemed to look like great curved fins rather than actual wings and I wondered why Nido might use this design. Nido had many detailed schematics of the whole vehicle, and I wondered how the deuce one might drive it. On the rear end of this vehicle, was a large rocket booster system, much like a space shuttle would have. On the straight far-reaching wings were what Nido described as polarity boosters, though I didn’t fully understand what that meant right away. There also appeared to be a series of video cameras on the top part of the cone too, which appeared to have a spinning track inside it.
The construction of this vehicle seemed like it would be both costly and almost wasteful since it looked like it would take a great deal of resources to make. The fuselage (the central conical section) looked to have a diameter of roughly two meters, and the length ran for nearly four times that and the wingspan was perhaps ten meters altogether. On some other pages nearby, Nido showed the interior of the vehicle, and it appeared that in the front of the fuselage, was an elaborate series of two chambers, one inside the other. The first or more external one was a large cylinder made to fit the interior of the ship, but it was built on a great system of gears as in a gyro sort of fashion, in order perhaps to spin to accommodate the vehicle, when it turned. Inside of this chamber was a second more spherical chamber where a chair and control panels were. It appeared in order to enter this sphere, one would have to open it from the control panel side and the sphere itself would nearly pop out from the cylinder in which it stayed. Once this occurred, the panel would dilate locking it to the front of the cone until one was inside and sitting comfortably, at which point, it would close and withdraw back to the cylinder. In order to get out through the rest of the cone, one simply had to walk the distance between the cylinder and the cone, which would split into eight sections and those would retract into the fuselage. The sphere had a section for storage behind the seat as well as the passenger area. I don’t know what alloy Nido had in mind to construct the sphere, but it looked indestructible, and when needed, it appeared this could be ejected from either end of the vehicle and could survive most collisions.
The rear of the fuselage seemed to be primarily for fuel storage, and whether this was intended purely for the more traditional rocket boosters, or the polarity boosters on the wings, I couldn’t tell at first. Inspecting it further, I learned more about the propulsion system of this vehicle and again found myself at the simple brilliance of Nido. The basic design was meant for the rocket to basically spin, except when it was taking off, landing, or gliding. The wings were intended to be built in such a way as to retract the majority of their inner material when in spinning mode (for the longer wings) or straight mode (for the curvy ones), so they would simply add force to the sort of flight that was intended to take place as it was occurring. The wings’ material looked to be like a very light alloy, and would close like Venetian blinds when not in use, but much more solid of course. The outer wings, while in spinning mode would turn down so as to have the least aerodynamic resistance while in flight, even though there was little inside them to encounter resistance. The spinning would be counteracted in the fuselage by the design of the cylinder and sphere, so as not to totally nauseate the pilot or anyone inside. I didn’t realize this straight away, but rather after some time of reading and deciphering his notes on the subject. The idea of this basic aircraft was more or less intended to be a bullet vehicle, namely one that could spin like a bullet in order to get the best possible force and distance, not to mention accuracy out of the plane. The spinning could also be controlled, so as not to be impossible to stop when one wanted to slow down.
What was even more interesting was that Nido designed a system that would alter the course of the craft, effectively making it fairly easy to steer. The method for doing so was the straight wings in rapid succession would extend themselves one after the other and just as quickly withdraw back closer to the craft. While doing this, they would also rematerialize their wings and again, just as quickly, they would retract them. This appeared to be all calibrated in the theoretical navigation system Nido had designed to control this so as to take it as far as it needed to go. On closer glance at what the navigation system could handle was the fact that it would adjust itself for the density of different degrees of air, water and space. Meaning that this system was meant to be a craft that could go into the oceans if it was for some reason necessary, or up into the heights of space. The final thing I’d like to mention on this point is the launch pad and docking station for the vehicle. This seemed to be one of the major snags for the design I thought to myself, because there is really only one place this machine of Nido’s mind could really dock or take off from comfortably. The docking station was built on a high platform between two stands, a hind stand meant to take the booster and rear of the craft, and the other section curving up to the front end, where the vehicles occupants could board. The hind section of the dock, when ready, would turn and lower the rear section and then take the countdown would begin. As for landing the vehicle, it appeared that Nido had made some sort of supports that would come out from a section in the middle of two of the straight wings, but this didn’t look terribly feasible to me, but I suppose that is why it was on the drafting table.
Another design I came across was more of a seagoing vessel called the oxo. This vessel looked like a bowl, a perfectly hemispherical shape. It was open at the top, so looked to be like a regular boat, only with a completely round hull. Out from the hull came a series of four eight jets, again all in perpendicular fashion, each at an angle of 45° from one another, but they altered direction. They were all on the circumference of the sphere, and the one’s directly in front of and to the sides of the direction the driver faced were crosswise, while the one’s diagonal to the driver were going up and down. So, essentially, this vessel could push itself any way it needed, which wouldn’t make sense unless the top were closed. I soon discovered that the top would indeed close, for inside the hull it stored a very fine glass hull, that would on command raise and turn this unusual looking boat into a submarine. The hull would eject the top of the vessel in one piece from front (where the driver sat) to back and lock on so as to have a top clear half and a strong solid bottom half. On the bottom half, aside from just the jets placed at the top, were four mechanical arms placed beneath the up/down running jets and about half way down. These arms all had three fingers and in each hand was placed a camera. There were also cameras on the arms themselves which had two main sections (like a human’s arm with three fingers). What these arms were for, I only can assume was to handle things one might find on the ocean floor.
The interior of the vessel actually revealed a lot more about some of the specifics. One thing was to have ultimate mobility while in the water thus the amount of jets. Also inside were what looked to be special gloves one might put on to control the robotic arms. In front of the driver’s seat were control panels, such as levers and steering wheels and throttles and so on. In front of these things were a series of monitors which might help one to see any point in the water and especially for the arms on the bottom, I assume each monitor would have been for each camera, plus a rear and bottom view. There was also space for storage and an oxygen port, as well as machines made to pressurize in a quick amount of time. Further, there were ducts meant to take in water on the bottom half of the hull after the top half would close. This I suppose would keep the vessel where Nido may want it to be, rather than constantly forcing downward pressure from the jets. The vessel was about again two meters in diameter, Nido seemed to really like this dimension, and it seemed practical too. Two meters I could imagine was about a good length for a number of his vehicles, it was spacious but not needlessly so. I rather fancied actually having something like this water vessel and exploring the ocean floor to its very depths. Nido, it seemed had accounted for most everything, including altitude, temperature, buoyancy, what materials to use, and so on. All things were discussed at length in his notes, all machines, and sketch of them, for this and all vehicles.
There were more details of course, but these were the more interesting, others were good too, but more mundane or less unique. It was a curiosity to my mind that Nido would actually invent something to go nearly anywhere his imagination could take him, but would certainly never, or at least improbably, have gone anywhere except his house. Based purely on the amount of inventions and diligence to work and creation he seemed to have, I doubt he would ever give himself the luxury of enjoying any of these sorts of things for long. Perhaps that is why he decided to only sketch these out and make blueprints for them, because he knew they would be of no practical use to him. On the other hand, it seemed more likely to me, that Nido knew these were beyond plausibility and accordingly never attempted their construction as a result, or he simply didn’t work out the kinks and likelihood of actually building them, so they were put on the backburner for a while, as he would work on other things. This seemed to be the most likely possibility to me, and I suspect that had Nido lived for another hundred years, he certainly would have tried to make all of this at one point, but I wasn’t sure. Strangely enough, I later found in what seemed to be a toolbox beneath the draft table, a series of models of various parts of each of these sketches saving a few, there were even models of the modular parts that would construct each of these, including the boosters and so on. All the models seemed to be made out of the materials that he probably would have actually constructed the real things from.
It made me ponder further, how many of the inventions that we’d already seen did Nido create models of beforehand? This was a question that would have to wait to be answered, but for the time being, I soon looked up from the draft table and discovered that I had taken a while looking at these sketches and wondered where Kelly had gone, because she was no longer present, I then noticed a door going inside ajar, and decided to follow it and eventually made my way through a small hallway to a decent sized room I could only describe as Nido’s wardrobe.
