Never Again

by M. A. Rothman

  Leaning forward and peeking into the sphere, Dave couldn’t help but realize that with enough power flowing through the inner loop of the ribbon, it could almost certainly create a gravity bubble just like the ones he’d experimented with at the ISF.

  “Frank, this is fascinating. I’ve done a few experiments that look similar to this, but not quite the same. I would say that if you have a strong power source within these loops, the first layer can act as a stabilizing agent, and the second loop could act as a way of draining the power from the first loop.”

  “Exactly!” Frank smiled and pointed at the top of the engine, which had a dozen finger-like cables coming out of it. “These are the engine’s outflow cables. Even though each cable can carry almost unlimited power, I’ve split them, so if needed, we can send power across a dozen less-efficient transmission lines.”

  Frank nodded toward the metal shell lining the inside of the sphere. “You’ll notice that I’ve coated the inside of the engine with a magnetic liner, which keeps the magnetic effects from seeping out of the engine compartment.”

  Bella had obviously been paying attention the entire time and asked, “But wouldn’t those coils also produce a magnetic bottle effect inside the engine?”

  Frank stared unblinkingly at Bella, and for a moment it was as if he’d suddenly become an overweight Asian statue. And then, he turned to Dave with a smile and pointed at Bella. “She’s very smart!”

  Trying not to laugh at Frank’s incredulity, Dave nodded. “That’s right, with the way you’ve designed this, if the power source is inside, wouldn’t the magnetic bottle effect get stronger as the power increased? If this works, you could literally have fusion containment inside this, couldn’t you?”

  “Yes!” Frank’s cheeks wobbled as he nodded vigorously. “I tested it already. We achieved a near-perfect mass-to-energy conversion once the fusion process started. Admittedly, we had to cheat and feed energy into the engine to initiate the fusion and test this out, but it worked.”

  Dave sat back and let what Frank had said sink in. If it was true, Frank may have solved what had been plaguing nuclear scientists for a century. Not only was Frank presenting the possibility of room-temperature superconductors, he’d be the first to demonstrate an efficient fusion reaction. Heck, if what he said was true, then.... He turned to Bella and asked, “If we had a perfect conversion of a gram of material, how much energy would that yield?”

  Without hesitation, she said, “Approximately 89.876 trillion joules.”

  Frank raised his eyebrows and nodded. “That sounds about right.”

  “That’s more than the energy released from the Hiroshima blast back in World War II,” Dave noted, amazed. “And all from something the weight of a paperclip. But how do you regulate the power release?”

  Frank pointed to the control panel on the side of the ball and explained, “The controls I’ve established are as simple as possible. A digital rheostat lets me adjust the power flow at increments relative to the amount of energy remaining within the ignition chamber. Right now, I have it regulated so that if you set it to ten percent, that means you’ll get a ten percent power flow until the energy is exhausted. Just like Einstein said, mass and energy are interchangeable. You can literally contain an unimaginable amount of energy in here. It’s an engine and a battery all at once.” Frank wagged his finger at Dave. “But don’t set the rheostat to one-hundred percent or the entire store of energy in the magnetic containment vessel will flow out instantly.”

  “So if you set it at its lowest setting, how long did you calibrate the energy flow to last?” Dave asked.

  “Oh, that’s easily adjustable. Right now, it’s set to one hour at the lowest rheostat setting, but the timings can be adjusted. I suppose we could even make it so that the engine dribbles energy out over a very long time, upwards of a maybe even a decade or so.”

  Dave frowned as he considered how much energy would be needed for a nine-month journey. He knew that even in the unlikely chance he could get access to all of the world’s nuclear weapons, there wouldn’t be enough energy for the trip.

  “Dave,” Bella tapped him on his arm. She leaned in close and whispered, “That magnetic container might be useful for—”

  “Oh!” The image of the Area 51 sphere flashed into Dave’s mind, and he realized at that moment what he might be able to do.

  He lurched to his feet, grabbed Frank in a giant bear hug, and whispered, “You might have saved us all.”

  Frank blinked rapidly as Dave let go and brusquely wiped his eyes.

  “Frank, let’s talk about how we’re going to use this engine.”

  ### Three days later–Area 51 ###

  The dry underground tunnel smelled faintly of age, like the scent of paper from a hundred-year-old book. As the half dozen agents gathered around him, Dave tilted the side of his head against his shoulder until his neck popped loudly, reducing some of its stiffness. He focused on each face gathered just outside the stairs that led to the charred sphere. “You all have been briefed on the importance of this mission,” he said. “Let me just repeat what everyone’s task is.” He pointed to the four burly men wearing a head-to-toe fine metal mesh suits. “First, let’s talk safety. Thanks to the UNLV College of Engineering, we’re all wearing Faraday suits. I know it feels like you’re staring through metal gauze, but I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen when we try to move that thing. My best guess is that it’s unstable and will shoot sparks in every conceivable direction. If any of us gets hit with an arc of electricity, the suits should conduct the electricity around us and into the ground. At no point in time are you to even think about taking these suits off until we are miles away from here. Understood?”

  The men, all CIA operations officers, nodded. Dave laid his hand on the carefully packed engine they’d brought back from Shanghai. “When I say go, two of you lift the front of this crate, two of you lift the back. I’ll lead you guys down the stairs and light the way. Once we’re down there, you’ll quickly but carefully rip open the crate and set the contents on the ground where I say. Just listen to my every word and do exactly what I say, nothing more—nothing less—and we’ll be fine.

  “Once I say we’re good down there, gather up the packing material and race upstairs as quickly as possible without killing yourselves. Once back up on this level, we’re going to run, not walk, to the elevators, go topside, and then evacuate to the designated safe zone. Does everyone have that straight?”

  The men all nodded, and Dave glanced back at Chris and Bella. “How much time do we have before the next burst?”

  Chris glanced at his wristwatch and responded with his heavy southern accent, “I reckon about four minutes, Doctor Radcliffe.”

  Dave nodded and looked at Bella, who was focused on setting up the remote viewing equipment. “Bella, will we be able to see that monitor from up top?”

  Bella handed Dave a video camera. “Yes, I tested it already. I’ve got a video camera set to watch the screen of this electrical field proximity sensor, and I put a signal repeater near the elevators, and another one up top. If you can set up that camera down below, it’s transmitting on a frequency that the repeater will pick up. We’ll be able to see both items once we’re at the evacuation site.”

  Addressing both Bella and Chris, Dave ordered, “Once we go downstairs, both of you start heading topside. By the time the rest of us come upstairs, we’ll be racing like the devil himself is chasing us.”

  Bella nodded, and Chris raised his hand and snapped his fingers. “Doctor Radcliffe, thirty seconds and counting.”

  “Everyone, turn on your lights,” Dave commanded. He walked to the top of the stairs and turned his lights on as well.

  The drone of Chris’s voice was clear as he counted the time remaining, “Three ... two ... one ... surge! It’s clear, go, go, go!”

  Dave raced downstairs, knowing that there was a lot to do before the mysterious object freaked out aga
in, and he didn’t want to be anywhere near this place when the time ran out.

  In a matter of two minutes, Dave found himself in the dark cavern with the charred sphere. The agents began uncrating Frank’s engine. He knew that there had to be splinters flying all over the place as the crate was being taken apart. There was nothing he could do about it other than hope it didn’t matter.

  Dave stared at the malfunctioning sphere and thought about the loops of exotic material contained inside Frank’s engine. On the way back from China, he’d formulated a theory about how this was going to work, but he couldn’t be sure.

  His guess was that when the engine sparked, it would provide enough energy to almost instantly cause the gravity bubble to come to life. Dave desperately hoped that that the engine worked the way he’d imagined. If the magnetic bottle didn’t contain the surge of energy, he’d probably be incinerated before he ever realized anything bad had happened.

  There was also a control outside the engine which increased or decreased the energy flow. The only thing that Frank’s engine did when you turned that knob was to barely deform the outer ring so the gap between the outer and inner rings became smaller. Dave’s best guess was that the outer ring would begin to syphon energy from the inner ring as they approached each other.

  The agents finally removed the top and all four walls of the crate, and Dave, who was standing next to the charred sphere, motioned to them. “Leave that engine on its base and just scoot the whole thing closer.”

  While they did, Dave placed the video camera within a rubber-lined metal mesh and silently hoped that the mesh wouldn’t be needed.

  The men placed the engine next to the charred sphere and Dave quickly tapped on the control panel. The sphere snapped open, exposing its inner workings.

  “All right, guys, this is where it gets worrisome. Carefully, and I mean very carefully, lift the charred smaller metal ball and gently place it inside this bright and shiny new one.”

  Dave moved out of their way and cringed as the four men crouched and extended their hands. He had no idea what would happen, but the reports clearly implied that people had touched and probed this thing in the past. Heck, they’d moved it and gotten it in that room, somehow. He only wondered if it had gotten more damaged since arriving.

  Holding his breath, Dave watched the agents’ hands all simultaneously approach the ancient sphere. He breathed a sigh of relief when they touched it and nothing catastrophic happened.

  Slowly they lifted the charred sphere and inch-by-inch moved it closer to Frank’s engine.

  As the men placed the sphere inside the engine, Dave warned, “It’s a bit too close—”

  A brilliant light flared within the room, blinding Dave and sending him sprawling backward as a cacophony of yelling, electrical arcing, and a metallic clang echoed loudly in the cavern.

  His heart thundering in his chest, Dave steadied himself and blinked rapidly, trying to get rid of the blobs of light obscuring his vision. “Is everyone okay?”

  He heard an immediate chorus of yesses, but Dave’s attention focused on the groan coming from one of the metal-shrouded men. He held his right hand in the crook of his left arm. “What’s wrong—”

  A chill raced through Dave as he spotted the first signs of blood dripping down the side of the mesh. He pointed at the agent. “Show me!”

  The man gasped through clenched teeth as he produced his hand, from which his two rightmost fingers had been severed. Dave cringed and glanced at Frank’s engine, which had sealed itself around the blackened sphere.

  His mind racing, he tapped one of the uninjured men and tilted his head toward the bleeding agent. “Get him to a medic! The rest of you, evacuate. I’ll be right behind you.”

  The men hurried out of the subterranean chamber. Dave walked toward Frank’s engine, and muttered, “Damn thing must have automatically snapped shut with that spark.” Guilt washed over Dave as he scanned the floor and realized that the man’s fingers were likely in Frank’s engine.

  Quickly double-checking his own suit and seeing nothing wrong, Dave approached the control panel on the engine and pressed the “Open/Close” button.

  Nothing happened.

  “Damn it, what the hell!”

  Pressing repeatedly on the button yielded nothing, and Dave silently cursed himself, knowing that there wasn’t much he could do at that point. It made sense that the engine couldn’t be opened if the magnetic seals had clamped shut.

  Ensuring that the power knob on the control panel was turned to zero, Dave removed the video camera from the mesh bag and set it back up on its tripod. He quickly gathered the packing material and backed away from the chamber.

  Knowing that he’d probably spent too much time in the chamber, Dave raced upstairs and felt the bile rising in his throat as he saw drips of blood along the way.

  ###

  With a heavy burden of guilt, Dave watched as a medic stitched up the agent’s hand and then placed a cold pack around the stubs of the victim’s fingers.

  “Doctor Holmes,” the injured agent glanced in his direction and tossed him a smile. “Please don’t feel bad about this, the doc says I’ll be fine.”

  Bella whispered, “The medic says that the nerve conductivity is still good. Agent Michaels will be able to get artificial finger replacements.”

  Nausea washed through Dave as he sighed, wishing he could have prevented that injury. “As far as I know, that was the first time anyone has ever gotten hurt doing something under my direct supervision.” He turned to Bella and frowned. “You realize that two of the other agents actually had the fingertips of their mesh suits chopped off? They just barely got their hands out of the way.”

  Bella rubbed Dave’s back. “See, it could have been much worse.”

  Dave took a shuddering breath and crouched near the remote video feed as the other agents waited patiently for an all-clear. They were ten miles from the Area 51 artifact, hiding behind a nearby stony outcropping. All of them stood on rubber mats on the off chance that the reports of huge electrical surges were true, or if something went terribly wrong. Silently, Dave prayed as time ticked away.

  Bella jutted her chin toward the image of the electrical field intensity monitor. “Isn’t it weird how before we got some kind of electromagnetic hum out of the sphere, but now, I don’t hear anything? It’s all quiet down there.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s a good sign,” Dave agreed. “If things are working the way they’re supposed to, we shouldn’t be able to sense anything out of it.”

  Dragging his rubber mat, Chris approached while announcing, “We’ve got one minute before the fireworks start.”

  Recalling how the magnetic seal clamped shut from the spark of energy, Dave could only imagine what might happen during the surge. If everything worked perfectly, the surge would be contained, and in fact, the surge would strengthen the magnetic seal. It would, in effect, bottle up the power now contained within Frank’s engine, providing an unknown amount of energy on tap.

  But would it work?

  With visions of all of the energy in that sphere spewing forth at once, he suddenly feared they might still be too close. For all he knew, if that thing blew, there may not be a safe spot anywhere on Earth. Dave shook his head and pointed up at the night sky. “I hope to God that we don’t see anything.”

  Bella reached for Dave. They held hands as they watched the video feed.

  With the phantom sensation of electric prickles all along his skin, Dave watched the monitor nervously, knowing that his mind was playing tricks on him. His breathing became shallow as the final moments approached.

  He closed his eyes and silently sent a prayer to any higher power that might have been listening. “God, please let this not end up killing us all.”

  Holding his breath, Dave cringed as Bella counted down the final five seconds. “Five ... four ... three ... two ... one....”

  Dave stared at the monitor, glance
d up in the direction of Area 51 and then back to the monitor. Nothing.

  Bella squeezed Dave’s hand and Chris exclaimed, “Looks like we’re all good!”

  Dave frowned at the lack of any obvious signs of surges. The field monitor showed no readings whatsoever.

  Staring at the remote image of Frank’s engine, Dave frowned as he stifled his own cautious optimism. “Well, the video feed in the room is intact. Let’s wait another forty-five minutes and see what happens. I don’t want to risk anything or anyone again.”

  Dave wiped the sweat from his face, and still he worried. He had no idea what was inside that mysterious sphere, and even if it all worked, he knew it was a longshot that the strange creation would produce any energy, much less enough to make up what they actually needed. “I just hope this will actually work.”

  Chapter Thirty

  The president stared at the handful of people she’d called into the Situation Room. The rest of the White House was in total disarray as evacuation proceedings were taking place. With Burt, General Keane, and Kevin Baker in the room, she knew this might be one of the last times she’d get a briefing within the White House.

  “Madam President,” General Keane, her Secretary of Defense, said in a calm yet solemn voice, “the Cheyenne Mountain Complex has been prepared. We’ll be moving all essential operations into that location along with critical White House and Governmental Staff over the next two days.”

  Margaret nodded as she sat back against her chair and silently wondered if she’d ever see this room, or DC for that matter, ever again. “Understood, General.” She turned to Kevin, her Director of the CIA, and asked, “Where are we on the N35 response to the terrorist attack and have there been any retaliations?”

  “It has been more difficult than we anticipated trying to root out those associated with this death cult. As you know, they’ve infiltrated many of the major religions, but we’ve gotten cooperation from the Vatican, as well as many prominent imams and rabbis. Even the Dalai Lama has found those amongst his flock who seek the end of the world as we know it. With their help and the intelligence resources of the N35, we’ve removed over 200,000 of the most virulent of the cult.”