Maybe I can entice Xi-Michaels with some more competition. Zuck will want a rematch and I won’t need any borrowed avatars.
He dressed then looked at the camera feeds that lined the way from his room to the cargo bay. The path was clear. He ran out the door, and minutes later his hopper whisked him away to Dactyl.
Upon entering Rinsler’s dome, he was greeted with a hearty hello that shocked him.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Yes, today we test,” said Rinsler. “First, I need you to place one of the spheres outside near the shield generator. There’s a pedestal to hold it.”
He handed Alvin a sphere, his fingers lingering on it.
“I saw the pedestal yesterday,” said Alvin. “I got it.”
Alvin tugged the little ball away from him.
Rinsler’s eyes stayed on it as he spoke. “When you get back, we can travel to the test site with the other sphere. We’ll be transmitting from the Celmis crater.”
“Transmitting what?”
“Matter,” said Rinsler.
It sounded fantastical—transferring matter from one tiny ball to another.
The ’roiders are on the right track. Maybe this is the end of their careers.
“I’ll be right back,” said Alvin.
Alvin continued to ponder the technology as he trudged outside.
Near the shield generator, he found the pedestal. He placed the little ball in a curved groove and flew back to the cabin to find Rinsler suited up for the vacuum. The scientist was dressed in a battered white space suit. The exterior was plain; devoid of the styling that Alvin sported.
“Finally getting you outside?”
Rinsler’s black beard was stuffed into the lower half of his helmet and it brought attention to the whites of his eyes. He looked terrified. “I don’t like it out there. I don’t mind saying it.” He looked down at his feet.
“You’ll be fine. We’ll take the hopper. You can even take your helmet off if you want,” said Alvin.
“No. We can’t take the hopper. It’ll see us. See the sphere.”
“What will?”
“There are cameras. Did your hopper cameras see it when you brought it to me?”
Here we go again. He’s getting weird.
“No. I had it in a pack.”
“What about on the way to the base? After you took it from my brother?”
“You’re worried about this again? No, the ship had no power. No one’s seen me with it but you.”
Rinsler was breathing heavily.
“Are you sure you’re ready to go outside?” said Alvin.
“No one?” said Rinsler.
“Well, the Alteris guys who went onboard with me. They’ve seen it.”
“Oh my god, they could have been recording!”
“If it’s a concern, why don’t you just request to have their recordings wiped?”
“Are you crazy? That would create database cross-references! The metadata would grow!”
Alvin grabbed Rinsler’s shoulders and looked up at him. “What do you want to do, Mohammed?”
“Mo,” said Rinsler. “I prefer Mo. We can’t take the hopper. You’re good with that suit. You tow me. And do not let me drift off into space!”
“I hadn’t planned on it. Let’s go, Mo.”
He gave a little laugh at the way the words rhymed and directed Rinsler to the airlock. Then he tethered himself to Rinsler as Toshiro had done days previous and waited for the exterior doors to open.
I’m going to enjoy this.
The moon was hardly a mile across in any direction. Not far at all, but there was no trail to the other crater, no embedded posts for handholding. They would have to fly there.
“I guess we get to see how fast this suit goes,” said Alvin.
He smiled behind his visor and jumped off the ground. He thought himself up and his jets fired.
My synaptic control is so much smoother.
He heard Rinsler gasp as they were whisked off the platform. They moved over the pulverized gray surface at speed.
“So, Mo—what killed your brother?”
“Now is not the time,” squeaked Rinsler.
“Now is definitely the time,” said Alvin. “For the next several minutes, I’m in charge of the in-flight entertainment.”
Alvin dove downward until Rinsler’s feet almost touched the surface.
“Okay. Okay. I’m not sure exactly, but I have a suspicion,” he said.
“I need clarity, Mo,” said Alvin. They raced toward a small rise up ahead. “Wow, would you look at that hill. Hope we don’t hit it.”
“It’s the U.S. government. A desperate last grasp at power,” said Rinsler in a panicked tone.
Alvin pitched the thrusters upward.
“And they didn’t take the sphere because it was locked? Better lift your legs, Mo.”
Rinsler gave a frightened mumble. He tucked his knees to his chest and just cleared the hill.
“They didn’t take it because they don’t know how it works. They need me. They would not have killed me. My brother’s death had to be an accident.”
Alvin thought about Vance’s article mentioning his trip to Ida. He thought about the suspicious feeling that he’d had out at the Zzyzx. The feeling that he was being watched. Someone was going to find them sooner or later.
They crested over the edge of the Celmis crater and Alvin slowed to a stop. Momentum sent Rinsler past him. The tether straightened and snapped the scientist to a halt.
Alvin bounded over to him and looked him in his copper face shield.
“What if they followed me?” he asked.
“Your paranoia is justified, Mr. Baylor. Now let’s begin.”
Rinsler knelt down and pulled the black sphere from its pack.
“Wait a minute. Don’t you think our lives are important?” said Alvin.
“Certainly. We have been chosen for this purpose.”
Chosen?
Alvin believed the man was a genius, but he was also bonkers.
Will I be gone before the arrival of government agents? Am I bringing Katy to a greater danger?
Rinsler handed over a drill and shovel and directed him to dig the barren ground.
He took to it as an act of distraction. The low gravity made it an easy job. A small boring drill cracked the dry regolith and then a hand shovel finished the hole. He could barely see over the top of the ditch he’d dug by the time Rinsler directed him to stop.
“Close enough for government work,” said the scientist with an obnoxious laugh.
Alvin hopped out of the hole.
“I didn’t tell you to get out,” said Rinsler.
He handed the black ball over to Alvin. “Place it in the hole.”
Alvin did as requested and looked at Rinsler for further instruction.
“Fill it.”
“How are we gonna control it, then?” said Alvin.
“Remotely. I’ve rebuilt the synaptic receiver.”
Alvin nodded and pushed the rocky matter back in the hole. He found it odd that Rinsler was comfortable with his precious invention being covered in dirt. After all that careful handling, he sounded delighted to see it buried.
Dusty debris hovered in the low gravity like smoke while Rinsler tapped a small pole with a lens into the ground.
“Is that a camera? I thought you said no cameras.”
“The signal is contained within the shield,” said Rinsler. “And I disassembled it to look for bugs. We head back now. Any questions I should prepare myself for?”
Jackass.
“Yeah, what did you mean when you said you were chosen?” said Alvin.
He fired his thrusters and rose a few inches until he was eye level with the taller man.
“It’s hard to explain,” said Rinsler.
Alvin rolled his eyes. “Try.”
He fired his jets at top speed. The tether straightened and they were both off the ground in a moment.
&
nbsp; Rinsler shrieked. It was small reward. Alvin wanted answers now, not sadism.
“I don’t know if I can trust you,” said the scientist.
“What the fuck are you talking about? I’ve risked my life for you.”
“I have been chosen to save humanity.”
“Save them from what?”
“Themselves.”
“Did Alteris choose you for this? Because I’m pretty convinced they’re in this for the profit.”
“No, I was chosen by a higher authority.”
“The great consciousness? Good grief. You’re a major fucking pain,” said Alvin as he sped them over the gray surface.
They did not speak again on the way back to the dome. Instead, Alvin silently counted the hours until Katy’s arrival.
Upon returning to the dome, Rinsler declared it lunchtime. He printed up a chicken sandwich and parsed through data at his console. His synaptic cap was still stretched over his shaggy locks like a torn hairnet. It made him look like a vagrant.
I can’t believe this guy doesn’t have implants.
Alvin took a bite of his Camarones a La Diabla. He was disappointed that it was not very spicy, but found the consistency to be pleasing.
And he uses that ridiculous quantum mainframe. That old console is as big as an autocar. He’s a weird sort of Luddite.
He finished up eating and asked, “Okay, Mo. When do we get to it? I’d like to see what the hell I came out here for.”
“Yes, let’s do it. I’m ready now.”
Rinsler tapped his quantum console and turned on an extra touch-field display. It quivered above the desktop with visual distortion caused by the old books touching the emitters. He pushed the piles to the side and the image normalized.
“Come look. I have marked a selection for transmutation, but I thought you might enjoy trying it, as well.”
Onscreen was an image of the hole where they’d buried the device. Another window showed its twin on the pedestal outside.
“Now, reach out and feel what surrounds the sphere.”
Alvin stared at the screen.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “How do I do that?”
“I added the frequency to your implants when you were out. Just remember where we buried it and go back there in your mind,” said Rinsler.
Alvin stared at the filled hole on screen.
He closed his eyes and focused his thoughts on the device, and felt his head buzz. There was a sudden sensation of nothingness.
Where are my feet?
He panicked and toppled onto the console. “Whoa!”
“Sit and relax,” said Rinsler. “Try again.”
“I left my body,” said Alvin.
Rinsler nodded.
Alvin shook his head for balance and sat down. Then he tried again.
At first came the buzzing and the nothingness, but as he concentrated longer, he felt the cold dirt of Dactyl envelop him. It was claustrophobic. He was somehow in the sphere—in the hole he had dug. He murmured mindlessly, stuck in the feeling of it.
“It’s okay, you will be fine,” said Rinsler. “Try to find the surface.”
Alvin felt his perception expand, as though the orb were increasing in circumference. He felt the ground give way to outer space. A sense of relief came with it. He was free! Out of the earthy prison.
“Stop,” said Rinsler. “That’s too big. You’d swallow us whole.”
Alvin’s thoughts quickly left the black orb. He felt the nothingness and the buzzing again and got scared.
Where are my limbs?
Suddenly he felt his body and gasped. The buzzing retreated from his head and left an intense throbbing.
“This thing hurts.”
“Yes, it can,” said Rinsler.
“But that was amazing.”
“Indeed. You’re a very quick study, Mr. Baylor.” Rinsler pressed a button on the console. “I marked out three of your measurements.”
He pointed to another display. Three spherical shapes were drawn over a model of Dactyl with the device at their center. The last was larger than the entire moon.
“My measurements?”
“These lines represent your conscious awareness while connected with the sphere.” Rinsler traced the floating image with his fingertip. “They are potential selections for transmutation and transmission. You started small, but then your sphere expanded too far. You would have swallowed all of Dactyl.”
He switched the overlay to show a different selection. This one crested even with the ground. It looked to be about ten feet in diameter. “This was my sample. We’ll use it instead.”
“What exactly are we about to do?” said Alvin.
“Create a synthetic singularity and let it absorb our selection.”
“Wait a minute—those things create black holes?”
“Momentary and precisely focused ones.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Yes. That’s why we’re all the way out here on this godforsaken asteroid.”
“Got it. And then what?”
“The matter is transmuted. Then the singularity collapses and stores the new arrangement inside the sphere.”
“How much can that little thing hold?”
“I’ve not been able to theorize a limit, but it can only take one sample before it needs to be emptied.”
“Emptied?”
“Yes, or transmitted to the other sphere. Otherwise it would transmute the next selection in place. That could be chaos.”
“This is crazy,” said Alvin. “How long does it take?”
“It’s instantaneous,” Rinsler said with a smile.
“How far can it go?”
“As far apart as we place the spheres.”
Alvin’s brow furrowed. “No wonder everyone wants it! All of Alteris’s transport and security deals could be scrapped. They wouldn’t need the U.S. or the Chinese. They could rule energy and precious metals.”
“Well, yes, if you want to think small,” said Rinsler.
“Small? We could finally stop using Earth’s natural resources, maybe even stabilize the climate.”
“That planet is overpopulated and teeming with corruption and false morality,” Rinsler said in annoyance.
Alvin didn’t want to kill the conversation by pushing back. Rinsler was finally talking freely. “So how does it transmute the selection?”
“It encodes it into qubits at one per Planck length along the surface area of the singularity then reconfigures the subatomic arrangement.”
“Yeah, layman’s terms here, Mo.”
“The universe is a hologram, Alvin. Any three-dimensional object can be represented by quantum bits encoded on a two-dimensional plane. The data can then be manipulated via conscious suggestion.”
“A hologram? How could that be true?”
“The math is good,” said Rinsler.
“This all sounds like magic.”
“Ah, Clarke’s third law.” Rinsler smiled. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Humans have been wrong about the shape of the Earth—the motion of the planets—why not the nature of reality? Are you ready?”
“Jesus Christ, Mo. I’ve been ready for six months.”
Rinsler placed his hands flat on the console. “I will need to concentrate for the final step. Watch the screen.”
Serenity fell across his face as he connected.
Alvin had done a lot of mental mating with diverse systems of late, but nothing to match the sphere. He reflected on the profound experience he had just had. Then he heard Rinsler inhale and exhale deeply. The image from the Celmis crater changed instantly.
The sphere became visible in the center of a five-foot spherical extraction. It fell slowly in the reduced gravity and came to rest at the bottom of a new baby crater.
Rinsler’s eyes were still closed.
“Mo, you did it!” said Alvin. “At least I think you did.”
Rinsler opened his eyes slowl
y. He directed Alvin’s attention to the image of the reception sphere. The black ball was wrapped in purple, blue, cyan, and orange-red lines. The colors wavered like candle flames.
“We have hydrogen,” said Rinsler. “See the spectrograph?”
“Wow. How do we get it out?” asked Alvin.
“For now, we’ll just release it into the vacuum. I will communicate with the receiving sphere this time. Watch.”
Onscreen, Alvin saw the colored lines disappear with a quick gust of gas.
“Was that it?”
“Yes, we didn’t capture a very large sample.”
“How did you convert it to hydrogen?”
“I thought of hydrogen.”
“How the hell do you think of hydrogen? When I used it, it seemed to respond to my feelings and impressions.”
“Yes, and symbolism. I thought of hydrogen’s molecular structure,” said Rinsler. “Of course, we must also know precisely what chemicals we’re starting with, thus the selection analysis. This will be a long study, but we’ve done enough for today. I need you to collect the spheres.” Rinsler placed a white case on top of the console and opened it. Inside were two molded impressions for the devices. “Bring them back here, then you can return to Ida.”
“What comes next?” asked Alvin.
“Larger-scale selections and more-complex molecular structures. This was just the first test. Right now, I’m going to take a nap. I haven’t slept well the last few years. I think I’m due.”
Rinsler walked to the corner opposite his desk. He brushed aside some piles of junk to uncover a mattress. The scientist dropped onto it and secured a strap across his chest to hold himself down in the low gravity.
“All right, Mo. Have a good rest.”
Alvin was relieved to finally understand this job, and with that relief his mind wandered back to Katy. She’d be at Ida soon. There was no reversing that impulsive decision. He felt strange. He might be screwing himself with Alteris yet he didn’t much care. He could overclock again and he’d have his girl with him soon. That couldn’t be bad, whether the universe was a phony hologram or not. He put his boots on and hurried out the airlock door to retrieve Rinsler’s spheres.
Thirty-Five
On the way back to Ida’s dock, Alvin powered up his Opti-Comp to check for messages. He had one. A brief video clip of Katy from under the covers in his room. She winked seductively.
Alvin Baylor Lives! Page 22