New Eden

by Kishore Tipirneni

  Arriving at the Bowman Particle Research Center promptly at three o’clock, Rachael hurried through a second day of rain and opened the glass door of the atrium, where she was greeted by Charlotte Lloyd.

  “Welcome back, Miss Miller,” Charlotte said, this time with a warm smile as she stood and walked around the counter. “We’ll go straight down to the tokamak facility.”

  On the walk to the tokamak, Rachael saw individuals, mostly young, walking through the building, though still not as many as would reasonably be expected to work at a large university research center. That changed quickly as she stepped off the elevator near the control room, for she was unprepared for what she saw. Two university security guards stood on each side of the elevator, and two more guarded the portal to the interior of the torus. A dozen technicians, all wearing white lab coats, hurried through the circular corridor, some entering the control room, some climbing into the torus, others checking digital readings displayed every few feet on the exterior of the tokamak’s reaction chamber.

  “We’ve had a busy day,” Charlotte said, smiling at Rachael. “Why don’t you wait for Dr. Andrews in the control room? I’m sure he’ll be along any minute.”

  Rachael walked in and took the same seat as the day before as she watched personnel examining data on PC screens, printing hard copy readouts, and talking into microphones extending from their earpieces. Fifteen minutes elapsed before Joshua entered the room, the white tails of his lab coat flying behind him.

  “Good to see you again!” he said enthusiastically to Rachael.

  “What’s going on? I didn’t know you had a swarm of bees hidden in the bowels of the center.”

  Joshua raised both hands and wiggled his fingers. “No, just vampires that have come out of hiding. We scientists are a reclusive lot. All the technicians are resetting the tokamak for the next run. It’s a long process.”

  Joshua sat down in a chair next to Rachael, staring at her with a Cheshire cat grin on his face.

  “What’s going on?” Rachael inquired. “You know something!”

  “Um, maybe.”

  “You’ve made a stable pair of spookyons, didn’t you? They’re still in the spheres!”

  Joshua’s face beamed with pride. “Yes, and we’re getting ready to take them to our testing sites to see if they’re entangled.”

  “Sites? Plural?”

  “Our first site is in the bat cave I mentioned, the deserted mine shaft that has been converted to an underground lab. The other site is in a mine shaft thirty miles away.”

  Joshua sat in a rolling chair adjacent to Rachael’s. “Rodrigo retrieved sphere 0 from the torus about thirty minutes ago and is on his way to the remote test site. I’ll be accompanying sphere 1 to the bat cave when Rodrigo is almost to his destination.”

  “How long before we leave?” Rachael asked.

  “All that cool stuff yesterday really didn’t give you enough material to write an article good enough to earn a Pulitzer for science writing—assuming there is such a thing?”

  Rachael shook her head. “There are seven Pulitzers. One is for nonfiction. Hey, I didn’t come back today to watch monitors and technicians. This is a three-ring circus, and I want to see what’s going to happen in the center ring. And remember what’s at stake here. My article may help keep this whole operation going. Besides, you told me that the test was straightforward and didn’t constitute classified information.”

  “They’re retrieving sphere 1 from the torus now,” Joshua explained, amused at Rachael’s persistence. “We’ll head down to the bat cave as soon as we get it.”

  A few minutes later, a technician walked in carrying the black case that contained the sphere and detector and handed it to Joshua, who opened the case and carefully lifted the glass sphere to examine it.

  “It looks fairly delicate,” Rachael remarked.

  “It is. We had to make the glass thick enough to hold the vacuum inside, but thin enough so that the detector could work. I’d say it’s about as fragile as an iPhone screen.”

  “What happens if the glass breaks?”

  “Game over,” Joshua replied. “Remember that the inside of the sphere is a vacuum. If the glass breaks, the spookyon in it mixes with molecules of air in the atmosphere. Once that happens, there is absolutely no way of getting it back. It’d be gone forever. Definitely don’t want that to happen. But the sphere is pretty protected when it’s in this case. We’ve drop-tested the case with a sphere in it from twenty-five feet onto concrete. No breakage.”

  “That other black thing in the case is the detector?” Rachael asked, looking into the case.

  “Yup.”

  The detector was a simple black rectangular base atop which sat a circular band just large enough to hold the sphere securely. It was not unlike a mantel clock in which the round wood holding the clock face tapers on each side to a flat base. The base scrolled into an enclosed black tube on one end, and a series of small digital LED lights were embedded in the round band. The detector was attached via multiple cables to the metal plating above and below the sphere. There was another cable that emanated from the detector, which Rachael surmised was used to interface with a computer. The main body of the device was made of a black alloy that Rachael couldn’t identify, and the entire apparatus was only ten inches long and six inches wide.

  “Put two long antennas on top—my grandmother called them rabbit ears—and it would look like an old VHF receiver that sat on top of televisions,” Rachael said.

  “That TV receiver, as you describe it, cost the university a quarter million dollars. It has to be small in order to be portable, but it admittedly does a fairly simple job. It detects spookyons and their spin in that black tube on its base, and LED lights turn the sphere different colors depending on what it measures.”

  Joshua gently placed the sphere back into the case. “Looks good.”

  “Rodrigo reports that he’s almost to the other site,” a technician announced while looking at a computer monitor.

  “We should move down to the mine,” Joshua said, turning to a male technician. “Alfred, make sure everything is ready in the bat cave.”

  The technician grimaced good-naturedly. “That joke’s getting a little old, boss.” He got up and left to check on the bat cave.

  “His name’s really not Alfred,” Joshua said, turning towards Rachael.

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  “That’s all there is to it?” Rachael asked. “Pretty simple after all the hoopla surrounding creating that little guy.”

  “That hoopla may change Western civilization as radically as did the transistor or the silicon chip.”

  Rachael knew when she’d been bested. “Point taken.”

  A few minutes later, Joshua and Rachael stood before the gate of a freight elevator in the basement of the research center. The security guards would remain behind.

  “We’re going alone?” Rachael asked.

  “No one else is needed. The testing is a very simple process of turning on the detectors and checking for communication. Probably going to be a letdown for you compared to yesterday’s excitement.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  The wide elevator arrived from below and a male technician stepped off and gave a thumbs-up, indicating that the bat cave was ready. Rachael and Joshua stepped onto the elevator.

  “Going down,” Joshua announced. “Way down.”

  9

  The Bat Cave

  Rachael was startled when she exited the freight elevator, which took almost two minutes to reach the bottom of the mine shaft. She expected to step into a high-tech environment with state-of-the-art equipment, blinking lights, consoles, and monitors. Instead, she observed only two desks sitting in the middle of a large cement floor with a single chair in front of one. Each desk had a computer on it, and one had a landline phone. There were no walls at all, just exposed jagged rock surrounding the space. Three other pieces of equipment were recessed in the black outcr
oppings, but they were dark and obviously not operational. The cave as yet had no built-in lighting sources, so four high intensity T5 laboratory task lights—each mounted on an eight-foot tall circular chrome stand—were positioned at the four corners of the adjacent tables.

  “This is pretty sparse for an expensive, sequestered university lab,” Rachael remarked. “I thought you said that it resembled the bat cave from the movies?”

  Looking around, Joshua seemed perplexed. “Black rocks were always in the background of Hollywood shots for the cave. This is an old obsidian mine, which accounts for the black shiny surfaces of the rock faces. Hundreds of such mines extend westward from the Sierra Nevada Range. What’s the matter? Not enough ambience for you?”

  “But where are all the cool gadgets?”

  Joshua pointed to the tables.

  “C’mon.” Rachael said, hands on hips. “There are two desks, each with a computer, and one desk has . . . a landline? Really? Not much of a bat cave.”

  Joshua was a little perturbed. The bat cave was his place of solace, somewhere he came to get away. Not many people were allowed in the mine, and he was irritated that this woman to whom he had granted a special privilege was criticizing it. As the director of the center, he was accustomed to everyone falling in line with his orders and being somewhat subservient. It amazed him that someone he had just met the day before had enough self-confidence to confront him. Even though he was perturbed, Rachael’s self-confidence was definitely refreshing. Subconsciously, he also found it somewhat attractive.

  “We have some portable equipment we occasionally bring down,” Joshua replied somewhat defensively, “but when we test for entanglement, this is all we want or need. What’s important is not what you see, but rather what the equipment we have on hand can actually do. I assure you that when we finally succeed, we’ll have accomplished far more than catching the Joker or Penguin.” He turned around and surveyed the black-walled mine. “And when we get entanglement on a regular basis, this area will undergo a great deal of development since it has so much natural insulation from . . . everything.”

  “You’re the ringmaster,” Rachael said, acquiescing as she folded her arms and winked. “I’m just a lady looking for a great story.”

  Joshua took a seat on the chair and started unpacking the sphere and detector. Rachael stood next to him in front of the other desk.

  “Then this noir setting will surely suit your prose,” Joshua commented as he continued his work. “I read some of your articles last night. Very impressive. I especially liked your pieces on chaos theory. Oh, by the way, I forgot to instruct you to put your cell phone on airplane mode. We can’t have any interference when the test begins.”

  Rachael retrieved the phone from her briefcase and complied with the request. Joshua connected the interface cable from the detector to the computer on his desk. He then turned to his lone companion in the mine. “Did you bring more luck—as promised?”

  “I got into your lab and managed to make it all the way down to the bat cave—such as it is,” she said with a smile, verbally sparring with her host. “I’d say that was pretty lucky—and ingenious. Still feeling superstitious?”

  “Only when it comes to spooky action at a distance. This whole quest doesn’t represent the classic Newtonian model of physics. A lot of people think I’m operating on the lunatic fringe of science by looking for spookyons and that Henry’s success, despite the stir it caused, was a fluke that will never be reproduced. So yeah, I’ll take all the luck I can get.”

  Rachael appreciated the fact that Joshua was being very open with her. Most scientists, especially men, were guarded and defensive, but Joshua was relaxed enough in her presence to reveal his vulnerabilities. “Not to worry,” she replied. “I’ve got enough for both of us.”

  Rachael looked at the Bowman sphere on the table. “How come Tinker Bell isn’t glowing?” she asked with a worried note in her voice.

  “Tink is just fine,” Joshua answered absentmindedly, his attention focused on placing the Bowman sphere into the detector. “It only glows when the detector is turned on.” He continued working, running thin cables from the metal cap on top of the sphere to the detector. “There. All hooked up. The detector will now act as an interface module between the sphere and the computer.”

  “It’s amazing that something so simple can detect entanglement,” Rachael remarked.

  “Looks that way, but the technology behind it is far from simple. Everything we accomplish in the torus counts for nothing if this little jewel doesn’t function properly. That’s why it came with such a hefty price tag.” Joshua moved his chair directly in front of the computer. “Time to check on Rodrigo.”

  Joshua opened a video conferencing app on the computer, selected Rodrigo Torres from the contacts, and initiated the call. He waited almost a minute but got no answer. “Where the hell is he?” He tapped the floor nervously.

  “Maybe he’s lost. Maybe you need to put out the bat signal for him?” Rachael said jokingly.

  Joshua found Rachael’s remarks amusing. She was direct without being sarcastic, and he enjoyed the sense of humor of someone who was not only highly intelligent but well-versed in the sciences. And then there were her drop-dead good looks, which he was trying his best to ignore.

  “Rodrigo’s had enough time to reach the other mine by now,” Joshua replied with mounting frustration. “Punctuality is not his strong suit.”

  “Don’t worry,” Rachael said, trying to reassure him. “If anything had gone wrong during transport, I’m sure he would have messaged you.”

  “True, but Rodrigo has . . . how shall I put it—some eccentricities.”

  Rodrigo walked quickly down a dark tunnel when he heard the video conferencing app ringing. His tee shirt, which read CAFÉ JUAREZ — BEST BURRITOS IN CHIHUAHUA, barely fit over his paunch and was stained with red sauce. Out of breath, he entered the remote mine shaft and hurried towards the computer. Holding a slice of cheese and pepperoni pizza in his left hand, he answered the call, Joshua’s video stream starting to play on his computer. The director’s face appeared on the screen, somewhat perturbed. Rachael was not in the frame.

  “Hello,” he said, barely able to get the word out as he chewed.

  “Rodrigo, what the hell took you so long?” Joshua asked.

  “Just grabbing some pizza,” Rodrigo answered nonchalantly, his intonation sounding a great deal like Cheech Marin. “I wish you hadn’t installed the kitchenette so far away in this godforsaken mine. It’s not like I’m on the track team, ya know.”

  Joshua rolled his eyes. “Whatever—are you ready? I’ve just completed hooking up sphere 1.”

  “No, just got here boss. I still have to hook up the detector.”

  Joshua shot an exasperated look at Rodrigo. “C’mon man. Get with the program. I’ll call you back in a couple of minutes. And damn it, make sure you’re listening for my video call. We don’t get a pair every day, you know.”

  Rodrigo chuckled as he chewed another piece of thick crust stuffed with mozzarella. “I got a pair all right or I wouldn’t spend half my life in a mine shaft waiting for Batman to call.”

  The call ended.

  “That’s gratitude for ya,” Rodrigo muttered as he put the pizza slice on a greasy paper plate and wiped his hands with a napkin. He sat at a long table, unpacked the detector and sphere from its case, and connected the detector to his computer. He then faced the screen and typed with a speed that surprised everyone who knew him.

  As Joshua had noticed on several occasions, Rodrigo was more than a little sloppy, but not when it came to his scientific acumen. His brain, Joshua noted, worked with clockwork precision, which is why he alone was entrusted with sphere 0 when testing for entanglement.

  “If he gets pizza grease on the equipment, I’ll kill him,” Joshua mumbled as he ended the video call. He sat back in his chair, arms folded, as he waited impatiently.

  Rachael examined the detector. The glass was secur
ed by small rubber clamps in the circular band on the base. She had looked up information on particle spin the night before. She learned that the term spin was somewhat of a misnomer since subatomic particles didn’t actually rotate. Spin was only the name given to a certain property of how particles behaved in a magnetic field. Normal items, such as bar magnets, deflected to one side or the other when traveling through a separate magnetic field depending on how their poles were oriented to the field. The amount of deflection was correlated with how aligned the bar magnet’s poles were with the magnetic field it traveled through. The more aligned they were, the less deflection they had. But the Stern-Gerlach Experiment showed that subatomic particles only deflected as if they were completely aligned with the field or completely opposite of it. For these particles, there were only two values, aligned and not aligned—with no range of values. This property of particles was named spin and, in the case of spookyons, the two values were termed left and right spin.

  “So how does this detector work?” Rachael asked.

  “By measuring the spookyon’s spin using a magnetic field,” Joshua explained. “When the detector is measuring, it checks to see how the spookyon is deflected by this field. The field is generated by magnets so incredibly small that they have to be manufactured under special magnification conditions almost identical to those used to create the circuitry in a silicon chip.”

  “Okay, but how does this measurement of the spookyon’s spin allow you to send data?” Rachael asked.

  “That’s a bit more complex, but I’ll try to explain,” Joshua replied. “We use timing. For example, if we want to send one bit of information, we can define right spin as a zero and left spin as a one. Let’s say Rodrigo wants to send me a one bit. When neither of our detectors is measuring spin, then both spookyons are in superposition and their spins are undefined. Are you with me so far?”

  “If not, my parents wasted a lot of money on my dual major. Keep going.”