by Dean M. Cole
Teddy’s face scrunched up. “How did you find the coordinates for the first MBH, Command-Oh? How do you know they’re correct?”
“Hang on. I’ll show you.” Angela started typing again.
As she worked, Vaughn eyed the wormhole. Ripples were starting to flow across its surface, but Rourke had been right. The build-up was taking significantly longer than had their first one.
“The Necks are running the software over our computers, so the data within it has to conform to our syntax and program language.” Pausing, Angela entered a final command and then pointed at a specific set of numbers. “Here. These represent both the location and time of the first event, the creation of the initial micro black hole.” Angela hesitated, and her finger drifted to another location on the display. “Wait.” She tilted her head. “Could that be…?”
Her eyes flew wide. “Oh my goodness!”
Vaughn pried his gaze from the now clearly quaking mercurial sphere and looked at Angela. “Wh-What?”
Ignoring him, she looked at Bill and Teddy. “Go get the nuke!”
They stared back. Teddy’s bushy eyebrows knitted. “O-Okay, Command-Oh. Should we … take BOb?”
Angela shook her head impatiently. “No, no, no.” She jabbed a finger toward the exit. “Just go get it.”
Looking every bit as confused as Vaughn felt, the two men stared back at her, still anchored in place.
“Now!”
Bill and Teddy flinched. Shocked into action by the sharpness of Angela’s command, they quickly exited the room.
“And hurry! We don’t have much time!” She looked toward the door. “BOb! Get your carbon-fiber ass in here!”
Chapter 56
Angela pointed at the screen. “BOb, can you load these coordinates into the BFG?”
Bending at the waist, the robot studied the display for a moment and then nodded. “Upload complete.”
Vaughn looked from the robot to her face. “Uh … what are you doing, Angela?”
She held up a finger. “Hang on. We only have a couple of minutes before the overload goes critical.”
The back door flew open.
Both of them flinched and turned to face it.
Vaughn raised his rifle.
Teddy peered around the opening. “Don’t shoot, cowboy. It’s just your friendly Rusky and his trusty sidekick.” He stepped into the room, leading a cart that had the nuclear warhead riding its top. Bill entered behind him, pushing the back of the rolling shelf.
Vaughn lowered his gun.
The eyes of both men went wide as they looked past them and stared through the control room’s observation window.
“Holy shit,” Bill said. “It’s getting bigger.”
Angela nodded and waved them over impatiently. “Yeah, yeah. The wormhole is starting to respond to the power we’re pumping into the collider. Get over here before it blows!”
Teddy shook his head and gestured at the nuke. “We’re okay, Command-Oh. There’s still five minutes left on it.”
“No!” Angela pointed at the large window. She raised her voice above the increasing volume of the building energies. “I’m talking about the collider. It’s gonna blow soon, but I need to do something first!”
Her eyes lost focus.
Vaughn could see that she was struggling with something. “Dammit, Angela! What are you working on?”
She ignored him. Instead, Angela turned and stared at the quaking sphere. “Why do the Necks come through the wormhole?”
Vaughn blinked at the non sequitur. “What?”
“When they got the coordinates for our dimension, why didn’t they simply program a Tater to beam themselves here instead of Hell? Why only come through the wormhole?”
Bill Peterson shrugged. “I think it’s for the same reason they left here before sending the light through: they must fear it.”
Vaughn nodded. “Maybe it damages their circuitry.”
Angela looked at Vaughn as if she’d forgotten he was still there. Then she slowly nodded as well. “It must rob them of their sentience.”
Shrugging, Vaughn said, “Okay, but what the hell does that have to do with the here and now, Angela?”
The combined wail of the energy wave coupled with the coming overload threatened to shake his teeth from his jaw.
Vaughn’s eyes flared. “You need to quit with your twenty questions already. This habit of yours got really old last time. What’s up with the coordinates? What are you doing with the nuke? Spit it out, woman!”
Angela smiled at him and pointed at the computer screen. “I’m going to have BOb beam the nuke to those coordinates.”
“To Hell?! What good does that do?”
“No. Those are the coordinates for the other end of the wormhole. It’s where the Necks are coming from.” She gave Vaughn a meaningful look. “It’s where they are now.”
A grin spread across Vaughn’s face.
Bill guffawed. “Holy shit!
A laugh burst from Teddy. “Ha! Sweet!” He grabbed a Sharpie and bent over the nuclear warhead. A moment later, he stood and smiled broadly as he extended an arm and gestured to his handiwork.
The silver cone now sported a grinning visage above which was written:
From Russia With Love,
Mr. Nukey
Chapter 57
Standing next to Vaughn, Angela pointed at the modified BFG and looked up into BOb’s emotionless gray face. “Please tell me you still have one shot left in that thing.”
The bot dipped its head. “Yes, Commander Brown. I’m receiving multiple glitches per minute, and the circuitry is on the verge of burnout. However, the wiring harness still has sufficient continuity to convey one more discharge, and the time between BIT failures is long enough to permit the weapon’s activation.”
During the battlebot’s verbose answer, Vaughn flexed his jaw against the pain rising in his ears. “Dammit, BOb! Yes would’ve been fine.”
“Sorry, Captain Asshole.”
Wide-eyed, Bill turned from the spasming wormhole and stared at Angela. “What are you waiting for? Beam the thing to the bastards already.”
Watching the sphere, Angela shook her head and yelled over the cacophony. “Just a couple more minutes. If we do it too soon, they’ll just beam it back.”
A glint drew Vaughn’s eye to the partially opened drawer where Teddy had found the Sharpie. A pair of small discs shone from its bottom. They looked like inch-wide CDs. Looking at Angela, he pointed. “What are these things?”
Angela glanced over and then did a double-take. Her eyes went wide, and she began to run a finger across the front of the computer. It stopped on a small opening that had ‘Arch Mission Foundation’ stenciled above it. An identical unit sat just beneath it.
Sitting bolt upright, she thrust out a hand. “Give ‘em to me!”
He plucked the coin-sized discs from the drawer and handed them to her. “What are they?”
She plugged one into each of the two apparent drives. “They’re Arch discs, like the ones Elon Musk sent up with Starman.”
Vaughn nodded. “I remember that. They were in the Tesla Roadster he launched on the Falcon Heavy back in 2018. Those discs can hold a shit-ton of data.”
Typing quickly, Angela nodded. “Yeah, and they’re supposed to last forever.”
“What are you doing with them?”
She punched in a final command, and twinned progress bars started to slide across the screen. “I’m copying the Necks’ program and all the coordinates onto them.”
Vaughn blinked. “You. Are. A. Fucking. Genius!” He palmed Angela’s face with both hands and kissed her. “Have I mentioned how much I love you?”
Bill pulled his gaze from the slowly swelling sphere. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
Angela shrugged. “It’s insurance.”
“Against what, Command-Oh?”
“I don’t know, Teddy, but I’d rather have it and not need it than—”
Silve
ry spikes began to rupture from the exterior of the wormhole. They rose and fell in rapid waves that raced across its curved surface.
Vaughn shouted, “It’s time, Angela!”
Staring at the progress bars, she nodded briskly.
BOb raised the weapon and aimed it at the nuke. Then the robot looked at Vaughn.
The floor lurched beneath their feet, nearly knocking all five of them down. The nuclear device rocked on its cart and almost toppled.
Across the ATLAS facility, curtains of lightning danced across the spiderweb-like network of conduits.
Tremendous thunder cracked the air.
Vaughn pointed at the nuke and shouted, “Beam it out now, BOb!”
In his peripheral vision, he saw Angela stand up and eject the two discs. Then she jammed them into a pant pocket.
Flames exploded from the facility’s far side, launching a racing wall of churning fire straight at the control window.
Bill and Teddy took a backward step, but Angela and Vaughn stood transfixed, watching BOb.
The bot squeezed the trigger.
White light shot out from the business end of the BFG.
The nuke and most of the cart vanished just as the orange fire began to claw at the observation window’s glass face.
Then the insanely undulating surface of the wormhole pushed through everything, wrapping Vaughn and the rest of his team in its weightless black void.
Chapter 58
“Today, vee shall plumb the deepest reaches of the quantum realm. The collider’s High-Luminosity upgrade vill shine the light of discovery upon hidden dimensions und singularities.”
Hans had said those words for the benefit of both the reporter and her cameraman just a few short minutes ago.
He frowned.
Now he looked like the world’s biggest jackass.
As the director of CERN’s High-Luminosity upgrade, he’d expected to stand the world of theoretical physics on its head, but instead, he was standing here with a thumb up his ass and a multibillion-dollar collider upgrade that didn’t work.
The first attempt to generate collisions at the collider’s new and significantly increased power levels had resulted in a resounding thud.
He’d been certain this was going to be his Nobel Prize.
Now he’d be the laughing stock of academia.
Hans placed a hand over his heart, fingering the place where the metal would’ve hung.
A slap on his back snapped him from his silent mourning.
Blinking, he spun to face the interloper. “Vhat?!”
Sampson flinched and took a backward step. He coughed. “Sorry to disturb you, Doctor.” The man paused, and his face brightened. “I think I found the problem.”
The scowl melted from Hans's face. He hoisted hopeful eyebrows. “Vhat, vhat? Vhat have you found?”
“It was an interference pattern, electronic noise, I think. It started the instant we applied full power, but it’s gone now.”
Hans stepped around the man and bent over the console. “Are you certain, Sampson?”
The man nodded. “We just applied full power for a short burst, not long enough to create any of the highest energy collisions, but there was no sign of the noise.”
“Do you have a record of the anomaly? Ve vill vant to research that further later.”
“Yes, Doctor Garfield. We captured all the data. I have Stillman analyzing it now.”
“Sehr gut!” Hans clapped his hands together. Smiling broadly, he added, “Let us resume the experiment.”
Chapter 59
The black void swallowed Angela.
All sense of space and time ceased to exist. She simply was.
Then light flooded back into her world, and an all-too-familiar sensation of falling gripped her.
Bill’s voice burst from the speakers in her helmet. “Oh, geez! … What’s happening?!”
Squinting against the bright light, Angela shook her head. “Oh, no … No, no, no. The reset happened, but we’re still floating in our spacesuits!” She stopped fumbling for the helmet’s visor lever. “Wait … The light isn’t that bright.”
Blinking furiously, she finally managed to bring her surroundings into focus just as Bill’s gauntleted hand struck her visor. The disoriented man was flailing his arms.
Angela reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Bill! It’s okay. We’re back, but we’re still in the airlock.”
“Wh-What?” He stopped pinwheeling his arms. Blinking, he looked around and then locked onto her eyes. “How? … When?”
“The reset worked! It pushed us farther back in time. We haven’t started our spacewalk!” She looked around, and a smile crept across her face. “We haven’t even gotten to the outer half of the airlock yet.”
Eyes widening, she looked toward the hatch that led to the heart of the space station. “Where are you, Teddy?”
No good. The helmet muffled her words.
Releasing Bill’s wrist, Angela wrenched off her gloves and flung them aside. She clawed at her spacesuit’s neck ring with scrambling fingers. Unlatching the acrylic dome, she yanked it from her suit and tossed it aside. “Teddy!”
Chapter 60
Hans watched the building energy levels. It appeared Sampson was correct. There’d been no further sign of the interference that had collapsed the first run.
He looked at the reporter and gave her his best smile. “Soon, vee vill reach HiLumi’s maximum center-of-mass energy level.”
“Oh? How high is that?”
“Vee are not quite sure yet, but it could be as high as twenty-five TeV if vee are lucky. After that, vee vill begin proton-proton collisions.”
Subvocalizing, he added, “Und I vill finally earn my Nobel Prize.”
The reporter’s face twisted. “TeV?”
“Tera electronvolts, Miss Preston. It’s a unit of energy used in particle physics. One TeV is roughly equivalent to—”
“Doctor Garfield, I think we found something.”
Blinking, Hans turned away from the reporter. “Vhat did you find, Sampson?”
“Stillman was able to isolate the noise. He says it looks like a … a video.”
“That is ridiculous.” Shaking his head, Hans walked over to the technician’s workstation. “Video? How could video enter our system?”
The man shook his head. “I’m not sure, Doctor Garfield, but here it is. I have it queued up now.”
Hans pointed at the man’s screen. “Let us see it, then.”
The man nodded. A few mouse clicks later, a distorted video popped up on the display.
Hans blinked and stood upright. “Vhat is the meaning of this?! Is this some kind of practical joke?”
In spite of the grainy quality of the video, it was apparent that the person standing at its center was Hans. He could see his lips moving on the screen.
Looking around, he saw Stillman and Sampson shaking their heads.
Narrowing his eyes, Hans pointed to the technician. “Turn up the volume.”
A moment later, Hans's voice came from the computer’s small speaker. “…shine the light of discovery onto hidden dimensions und singularities.”
Standing upright, Hans turned and glared at the reporter. “It’s your recording!” The cameraman beside her was still filming. Hans pointed at him. “Your camcorder is interfering with our collider.” He pointed toward the exit. “You must remove it at once. Leave!”
In the corner of his eye, Hans saw Stillman shaking his head. “No, Doctor Garfield. I don’t think that’s what it is.”
Hans glanced at the collider’s displayed energy level. It was nearing the threshold. He turned his ire on the technician. “Vhat are you talking about?! Of course it is the camera. Vhat else can it be, idiot?”
The man’s face reddened. Extending an arm, he pointed at the screen, indicating a series of numbers at its bottom right corner. “There are more minutes of video in this file then there have been since you said those words, Doctor Garfield.�
�� The man tilted his head and then leaned in for a closer look. Then he shook his head. “And this file is more than a week old.”
Hans looked from the man to the camera and back to the screen. Finally, he shook his head in disgust. “All of these connected devices! Someone must’ve hacked the man’s camcorder. It is as simple as that.”
“Do you want me to stop the experiment?” Sampson asked.
Hans gave a sharp shake of his head. “No, no. Vee vill not let those bastards vin.”
“But sir,” Stillman interjected. “If you think we’ve been hacked, don’t you think we should—?”
“Nein! The experiment continues.” Hans eyed the power level. It was nearing the threshold. “Prepare for proton-proton collisions.”
Chapter 61
Haloed by his now grimy mane of reddish-blond hair, Teddy’s dirt-streaked, sweaty face floated into the opening at the station’s side of the airlock. Still in his combat fatigues and battle rattle, the man looked like a misplaced, ginger G.I. Joe having a bad hair day. “Command-Oh! It worked!” Then the smile plastered across his freckled face faltered. “Did we go back far enough? Have we stopped robot invasion?”
“I don’t know!”
“You want to call Director McCree?”
Angela shook her head and jabbed a finger toward the heart of the ISS. “No time for that. Stick to the plan. We’ll do this just as we briefed. Get the IP phone booted up. I’ll be right there.”
The man nodded briskly and then disappeared into the station.
She looked back at Bill as she squirmed out of her spacesuit.
The major had removed his helmet. He gave her a thumbs-up. “I’ll call McCree and tell him to contact CERN, just as we briefed.”
“Still got the number memorized?”
He cocked an eyebrow at Angela and waved her on. “I got this, Commander. Get the hell out of here.”
Angela nodded. During their travels across the Atlantic, she had made everyone in the group memorize the telephone numbers for both CERN and Doctor Garfield’s mobile.