Merritt and Kent had retreated from the pool to the patio chairs while Emma and Hannah made a visit to the motel room to get some snacks.
Merritt looked over at Kent. “Have we done anything yet?”
Kent shrugged. “It's been relaxing at least. Wonder if Pay It Forward society will pay us for a vacation to 1965?”
“They better… We can’t keep jobs if we miss work randomly for days in a row. Three nights, and four days in a motel room in New Mexico.”
Kent nodded. “Honestly, it’s boring. I mean the company is good, but we are just sitting around a lot.”
Merritt looked over. “Wasn’t too boring when you were staring down the barrel of a 1911 9mm…”
Kent nodded as a kid crawled out of the pool near them. “Point taken.”
Merritt followed Kent’s eyes to the boy—he seemed around 10 or 12. In his hand was a red plastic toy version of an SR71 Blackbird jet. He flew the jet closer to Kent and Merritt.
“Do you know what this is?”
Kent looked at Merritt. “Bet you do…”
Merritt nodded. “It’s a supersonic surveillance jet.”
“It’s a Blackbird.” The boy flew it in a loop. “My daddy is in the Air Force. We’re going to the Grand Canyon for vacation.”
“Very nice,” Merritt said.
The boy held the plane out in front of him. “What makes a sonic boom when a jet flies at the speed of sound?”
Kent looked at Merritt. “I think that one’s for you, too.”
Merritt looked at the boy. “Do you know that sound moves through the air?”
“Yes. We can hear echoes when it goes over there and comes back.”
Merritt nodded. “Okay… this is sort of make sonic boom easier. Let’s say you make a noise like a jet engine. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Merritt went on. “If you move in the same direction of the noise at the same speed of the noise and make another one then there will be 2 noises. So it will be louder. If you keep going at the speed of sound and make a 3rd one, then there will be 3 noises moving together and will be even louder. So a supersonic jet moves along making sounds that just keep adding up until it gets so loud, it's just a boom.”
The kid looked at Merritt then turned his head and looked across the pool.
“My daddy said it’s ‘cause the plane and the sound are traveling at the same speed, but he didn’t tell me about the sound building up.”
Merritt went through the discussion a few more times, then said, “So each time it makes a sound that sound moves along at the same rate as all the other sounds it made. It just keeps getting louder and louder. And when it gets so loud, you can feel it.”
“My aunt has an organ in her house. I can feel the sound with my hands when she plays loud.”
Merritt nodded. “If the sound gets too loud, it can break windows and stuff like that.”
The kid pointed across the pool. “I’m going to go tell my dad!”
He did, and the dad waved. Merritt and Kent waved back
A few minutes later, Hannah and Emma showed up with sodas and chips, and Hannah asked, “Did we miss anything?”
Kent pointed at the kid. “Merritt explained sonic booms to him.”
Emma handed Merritt a bottle of soda. “The version of me born in 2005 had a kid in school that did a science fair project on sonic booms. Sounds… piling up… waves… all that…”
“Waves…” Kent laughed. “Like ripples on a pond… Do you think that kid is the butterfly effect we came to cause?”
Emma laughed. “Better bet him than the hotel manager from yesterday!”
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