“Keep all options on the table, even nuclear weapons.”
Gareth nods. “We will be ready, sir.”
Stan promptly exits the room. Gareth takes a deep breath and wipes the sweat from his face. The conference room is eerily quiet, no outward signs of the major war moves taking place across the world. Gareth grabs his belongings and heads back to his office.
Holly greets him on the way out. “Have a nice day, Mr. Allen.”
He turns to her. “Your eyes are so real, Holly. You remind me of my ex-wife.”
“That is a nice compliment.”
“If you were a human, I’d ask you out for dinner.”
She smiles at him. “Have a lovely day.”
Gareth leaves the room and walks down the marble corridor back to his office. Along the way, he summons his smartglasses and makes a call.
Manos picks up. “Gareth, how are you?”
“Doing well, my friend.”
“How’s life?”
“Intense,” Gareth says as he loosens his tie. “Do you have a position at GoldRock ready for me? I need to retire soon.”
Manos laughs. “Too much stress on the job?”
“Every day is a new crisis.”
“I remember those days. Don’t worry, GoldRock will take care of you.”
“I appreciate it.”
Manos clears his throat. “Can we talk about Google?”
“Of course.”
“Last week, you said there’s a way for us to take charge of the company. Is that still on the table?”
“Absolutely. We have evidence that Andrews is friendly towards the Chinese. My superiors want her out.”
“I don’t blame you. She is a disgrace to the nation.”
Gareth enters his office and grabs a vodka bottle hidden in a drawer. He pours himself a cocktail. “So you want to be Google’s CEO?”
“Yes. I spoke with my staff and we think a takeover will be a win for the government and for GoldRock.”
Gareth sips the drink and kicks his feet on his desk. “Do you think you can run a big corporation?”
“Without a doubt. We will restructure it and eliminate their horrible research departments.”
“Great idea. You can help us transform Google into a war machine. Imagine what we could accomplish if the CEO were on our side.”
Manos whistles. “A pro-military Google? Now, that’s an advance! I can only imagine how A.I. will transform warfare.”
“Like how?”
“Think of next-generation viruses that evolve on the battlefield and penetrate China’s firewall and infiltrate its war factories. They would be the most intelligent weapons of all time.”
“A.I. munitions? Has that been done before?”
“Nope.”
“Incredible.” Gareth salutes. “Go get it, Manos. Seize the reins!”
Manos chuckles. “That’s what I want to hear. There’s a Google All-Staff meeting next week and I will introduce a motion to become the next CEO. To help us win the vote, I’d like to have some dirt on Andrews. You said you have evidence that she’s a Chinese spy?”
Gareth pauses. “Perhaps. Listen, I can help you become the next Google CEO but I need something in return.”
A few seconds of silence pass. “What do you have in mind?” Manos mutters.
“I want the CIA represented there.”
Manos clasps his hands. “You don’t even have to ask, friend. We can carve up the company together. If you like, I’ll terminate the A.I. department and transform it into a CIA operation.”
“Excellent. I’d like to be Chief Operations Officer.”
“You got it.”
“I also have a few colleagues that I’d like to see hired as executives.”
“Consider it done.”
Gareth smiles. “The future looks bright for us!” He sips some vodka. “I can definitely help you for your staff meeting.”
“Good. I must convince them that Andrews is a traitor. She doesn’t deserve to be at the helm.”
“I have what you need. Look for a secure message from me. I want you to win the motion next week and defeat her.”
“Let’s do it, Gareth. With your help, she will no longer be a threat to America. We will bring Silicon Valley back to our side and win the War.”
“I look forward to that. Good luck.”
18.
AT 2:14 A.M., Austin stands on a loading dock waiting for his team members. A light rain falls on the quiet Stanford University campus.
Through his smartglasses, he checks his inbox and finds no new messages, then loads a navigation window to confirm his location—the Radiological Sciences Laboratory, better known as the Cyclotron. He paces back and forth on the platform, anxiously anticipating his squad’s arrival.
Where are they?
The ground shakes and dim headlights appear. An unmarked bus drives through the empty lot, turns and slowly reverses towards the platform. Austin guides the vehicle into a parking spot and slams on its window when it’s a few inches away. “Turn the engine off!” he shouts.
The bus stops. Anil and five other Google employees step off and approach the dock. They greet their boss.
Austin spots Anil. “How long before the gravity event?”
Anil checks his watch. “Less than two hours.”
“That’s not a lot of time. Diego’s not with you?”
“No, Dr. Sanders.”
“He’s supposed to bring the titanium. Where is he?”
Anil shrugs. “I don’t know. He said he would be here at 1 a.m.”
“He’s late, and he hasn’t responded to my messages.”
“Any word on the neodymium laser, Dr. Sanders?” Fei asks.
“No.” Austin rubs his face with his palms. “Beth said she would find one and I haven’t heard from her either. This is a horrible start.”
Fei approaches the back of the bus. “The good news is we brought the Titan prototype.” She opens the trunk and reveals a five-by-five-foot wooden crate stamped with red “Radioactive” labels.
“It’s larger than I imagined,” Austin says.
“We encased it in lead,” Fei remarks. “The reactor itself is about a foot long.”
“You packaged the tritium and deuterium in the core?”
“Yes, Dr. Sanders. We used a small amount of our fuel supply. The prototype is fully assembled and ready to go.”
Austin inspects the package. “How will we test this? Assuming it works, we need a way to measure the output of our reactor.”
Anil points. “We found some old Tesla batteries in a junkyard. They’re inside.”
“Perfect. Let’s carry this into the Cyclotron.” Austin wheels a ten-foot cart onto the dock and ferries it into the truck. “Help me transfer the package.” The crew takes positions around the wooden box. “Ready, set, lift!”
They heave with all their might but the unit does not budge. Fei flicks her wrist in pain. “The lead casing is too heavy.”
Austin wipes sweat from his face. “How did you get this into the bus?”
“A robot moved it for us.”
“Just great,” Austin says. “Time’s running out and we can’t even move our reactor in place.”
Anil steps forward. “Let’s not lose hope. Two hours is plenty of time. Why don’t we unload the other cargo?”
“Okay, take the cart.”
They walk along the side of the bus and open a luggage door to reveal five corroded Tesla batteries, relics of a time when electric vehicles roamed the streets. They unload the four-foot units and transport them across the loading dock into a research building, heading down a dim hallway and through a door labeled “Cyclotron.”
A sensor activates a light switch and illuminates a massive laboratory space. In the center of the room, a thirty-foot particle accelerator extends to the ceiling and sits idle. Along its circular exterior, hundreds of wires and tubes emerge to feed a robotic arm attached to a computer console. The machine is dotted wit
h dozens of yellow hazard stickers—Strong Magnet, Caution and Radioactive.
Fei taps a display next to the instrument. “Does anyone know how to use this thing?”
Austin scans the console. “There’s no A.I. built into the software. We’ll have to operate it ourselves.”
“That’s impossible. There’s no way we could learn how to use this.”
Austin gives a cold stare. “Fei, in the old days, we had something called user manuals to operate machinery.”
Fei laughs. “Instructions for humans? What a funny idea.”
Anil removes a timer from his pocket and synchronizes it with the countdown from Barnard’s Star. He places it on a desk for everyone to see.
98:45, 98:44, 98:43…
Austin’s eyes widen. “Ninety-eight minutes before the gravitational wave arrives?”
“Yes, Dr. Sanders.”
“Time’s running out.”
Anil inspects the accelerator. “This arm loads the circular track. Somehow you insert the titanium here and it gets deposited inside.”
Fei rolls her eyes. “The titanium that Diego was supposed to bring?”
Austin’s face reddens. “That and no laser. This is a tragedy. I need a cigarette.”
A rumble shakes the room and a thumping blasts through the vents. Austin glances at his teammates. “Someone’s here!”
They race outside to find a helicopter in the sky, its spotlight shining on the loading dock. Austin runs behind a trash can. “Hide! Get away from the light.” His teammates run back into the hallway. “It might be the military.”
The chopper slowly descends and lands on the parking lot. Its engine powers down and a door opens. Two people emerge.
“Guys!” someone shouts.
Austin stands. “It’s Beth!” He runs towards her and his colleagues follow, racing to the copter to greet their boss.
Beth gestures to her guest. “Team, please meet Dr. Tom Lee, head of Stanford’s Applied Physics Department. He and I were classmates here decades ago.”
Austin shakes his hand. “Nice to meet you, Tom. You must be in charge of the Cyclotron?”
“Yes, my group operates it, but we haven’t used it in several months.”
“Does it still work?”
“Yes, though we have no more funding to run experiments. The NSF stopped supporting physics projects. All their money goes to the War.”
“That’s a shame,” Austin says. “This facility is an institution.”
Tom beams. “We did a lot of great work here. We discovered new subatomic elements and advanced quantum physics.”
Beth wags a finger. “Today we spend more on bullet casings than on science. Listen, team, I’ve brought Dr. Lee up to speed on Project Titan. He has granted us access to the accelerator—”
“That’s wonderful,” Austin interrupts, “but we have an hour before the gravity wave arrives. We’re still missing the titanium and the neodymium laser!”
Beth points her thumb at her helicopter. “You underestimate me.”
Austin’s peers through the chopper’s windows, spotting a four-foot metal cylinder. “Is that the laser? Where did you find one?”
She opens the door and drags the package out. “Give me a hand.” The team lifts the device and carries it towards the loading dock. “I purchased it from the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in the East Bay. They have the world’s largest neodymium laser and some miniature versions they no longer use.”
Austin turns his head. “How much did it cost you?”
“Half a million dollars. This one was built twenty years ago, and they promised me it’s functional.”
“Let’s hope so.”
The team places the tube on a wheeled cart in the dock. Austin leads them into the bus’s trunk. “Beth, take a look. We built the reactor prototype.”
She inspects the wooden crate. “Wonderful. Let’s get it into the laboratory.”
“We tried. It’s very heavy.”
Tom laughs. “You were planning to carry it in yourselves? Let me help you.” He taps his smartglasses and his pupils dart around. Seconds later, a door opens and a delivery robot emerges, its circular metal base resting on eight six-inch tires.
Austin chuckles. “It looks like a pancake on wheels.”
The robot drives up to dock and approaches the team.
“Hello, Sally,” Tom says to it. “Transfer this shipment into the lab.”
The machine whirls as a panel retracts and two arms thrust outward from its base, rotating and inserting under the crate. The package lifts in the air and transfers onto the stand. Metal rods stabilize the cargo as it heads for the research building.
“I need one of those,” Austin says.
The team follows the robot.
Beth turns to the group. “Dr. Lee will run our experiment tonight. He is an expert in nuclear physics.”
Tom nods. “I’ve performed many fusion experiments but we never found a reliable power source to maintain the reaction. Your solution is quite innovative. I’ve never heard of harnessing gravitational radiation like this.”
Austin pats Anil. “You can thank this guy.”
Tom turns. “This was your idea, young man?”
“Yes,” Anil says, “my calculations suggest gravitational energy will get us to the ignition threshold.”
“It’s worth a try,” Tom says as they enter the hallway towards the laboratory. “We were very close to solving fusion. I was hopeful for a breakthrough but then our funding dried up.”
“Really?” Beth asks. “What happened?”
“An oil company lobbied the government to shut off our funding. The experiments came to a halt, and the money went to the War.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Not at all. In fact, one executive singlehandedly stopped clean energy research in its tracks.”
Beth fumes. “If you had the finances, would you have succeeded?”
“Yes. Let me put it this way. If the government had spent one year’s worth of defense budget on science, we would not be using fossil fuels today. We could have replaced hydrocarbons long ago.”
“That’s a shame.”
They enter the lab and Austin points to the timer. “There’s only forty minutes before the event. We have to hurry!”
They rush to break open the crate. Kwame grabs a hammer and dismantles the wooden frame, exposing a lead safe inside. Fei enters a security code and unlocks the door, reaching inside to remove a zirconium sphere about a foot in diameter. Wires dangle from a black base mounted to the ball.
“Is that the Titan prototype?” Tom asks.
“Yes,” Beth replies. “It converts the energy from nuclear fusion directly into electricity.”
Tom inspects the device. “Amazing technology. So all you have to do is heat the shell to 100 million degrees?”
“That’s right.”
“Won’t that temperature melt the zirconium?”
“Yes, Tom, but that won’t stop the reaction.”
“Where will the output go?”
Fei lifts the reactor into the air. “There are copper wires coming out from the base and we will hook them up to these Tesla batteries. Anil can explain.”
Heads turn to Anil. “…that’s right. I designed an app that tracks the reactor. We can measure the current flowing through the wires.”
35:32, 35:31, 35:30…
Austin turns to the timer. “We’re running out of time! Let’s hurry and set up the gravity engine.” He opens the metal cylinder and reveals a miniature neodymium ray gun.
“Let me help you,” Tom says. “How is this laser supposed to sit in the Cyclotron? I don’t understand your configuration—”
Beth interrupts. “I’ll answer that. The accelerator will spin titanium atoms around a circular track. We want the beam to cross the titanium field and hit our reactor’s outer shell.”
Austin points. “That’s correct, but we have a problem. We don’t have any titanium—”
/>
“It’s on the way!” Beth shouts. “Diego messaged me that he’s flying here from New Mexico.”
“What?”
“He found a supply there.”
Austin eyes the timer. “Will he be here in thirty minutes? Time’s almost out!”
“Have some faith in him,” she shouts. “Team, we have to keep working!”
Tom and Austin carry the laser to a console and Tom taps on a computer monitor. The robotic arm lifts and draws outward, revealing a hollow core within the Cyclotron. He points to steel tubing encircling the machine. “That’s the path where the particles fly.”
Austin looks closer. “I see. So the titanium runs around in circles?”
“Yes.”
He taps the metal pipe. “But how will our beam project through this steel?”
Tom gestures to a hole along the duct. “See there? That’s the injector port. We normally plug it before a test, but we can keep it open for this experiment.”
25:13, 25:12, 25:11…
Austin eyes the countdown and panics. “It’s worth a try. I’ll help you install it.”
They walk into the Cyclotron, ducking under the steel tube and entering the hollow core. Austin places the laser on a platform and finds that it’s several feet short of the injector port. “Damn, we need to raise the height.”
Tom points to a closet. “There are step cubes in there. Feel free to use them.”
“Anil, grab several. Hurry!”
“You got it!” Anil heads for the closet and finds an assortment of materials. He grabs a pile and carries them to his boss. “Here you are, Dr. Sanders.”
Austin stacks several blocks on the ground and places the laser on top. “Damn, it’s short of the hole!” He tries several configurations but none of them yield the optimal height. “We need a few more inches. Anil, get some more materials.”
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